*-^-^*^''^' 


s 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


.^ 


-^^  w 


Fd- 


EASTER 


A   COLLECTION 


FOR  A 


HUNDRED    FRIENDS 


EDWARD   E.  HALE 


BOSTON: 

J.  Stilman  Smith  &  Co., 

30  Franklin  Strket. 

1886. 


Copyright  secured  by 
J.  STiLMAN  Smith  &  Company, 
1886. 


Greenfield,  Mass.  : 
Press  of  the  H.  D.   Watson  Printing  Company. 


t '  >•  '     .'.    '1       '  ^  ■    "• 


0V/ 


'TPHIS  is  a  collection  of  sermons  and  of  favorite  poems,  which  I 
have  made  for  many  friends.  The  sermons  have  been  preached 
in  the  South  Congregational  Church,  at  different  times  within  the 
last  fifteen  years. 

Edward   E.  Hale. 

Boston,  April,  1886. 


T  titi727H 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/eastercollectionOOhaleiala 


Table  of  Contents. 


PAGE. 

PALM    SUNDAY,  Matt,  xxi,  10,11 5 

PALM  SUNDAY 13 

PASSION    WEEK 15 

THIRST 24 

THE    VICTORY 25 

SOLACE    IN   SORROW 32 

LIFE   AND    ITS    ENEMIES 33 

THE    NEW  BIRTH 41 

INCREASE    OF    LIFE 42 

THE    LAW   OF    CHANGE 49 

CONSIDER  THE  LILIES 50 

LUTHER'S   EASTER    HYMN 58 

EASTER 60 

GOOD    FROM  EVIL 67 

THE    MIRACLE   OF    LIFE 68 

EASTER   DAY 76 

THE    SUN    OF   RIGHTEOUSNESS 79 

THE   FAREWELL   AT  AZAN 86 

THE    LIFE    WAS    THE    LIGHT    OF    MEN 87 

J  HE    SECRET  PLACE    OF    THE    MOST  HIGH 94 

IMMORTAL 95 

LISTENING 102 

MANY    HOMES 103 


PALM  SUNDAY, 


"When  he  was  come  into  Jerusalem  all  the  city  was  moved,  saying,  'Who  is  this?"  And 
the  multitude  said, '  This  is  the  prophet  Jesus,  of  Nazareth  of  Galilee." " — Matt,  xxi,  lo,  ii. 

With  the  exercises  of  Passion  Week,  the  Roman  Church  abruptly 
leaps  from  ife  commemoration  of  forty  days  of  fasting  in  the  beginning  of 
the  Gospel  Year,  to  its  celebration  of  the  end  : — the  week  of  triumph, 
trial  and  death.  The  latter  service  is  far  more  appropriate  than  the 
former.  The  asceticism  of  a  formal  Lent  is  scarcely  in  place  in  the 
lengthening  days  of  a  year  renewed.  But  of  that  week  at  Jei*usalem, 
in  which  the  various  lines  of  the  Saviour's  life  are  twisted  all  together, 
in  which  all  his  prophecies  of  his  personal  life  came  to  their  fulfillment, 
in  which  that  life  taught  its  last  lessons  and  he  bade  the  world  fare- 
well,— of  that  week  it  is  not  strange  that  every  word  has  been  treas- 
ured, and  that  the  world  has  been  glad  to  reproduce  every  picture. 
Whether  on  canvas,  or  in  song  or  story,  or  in  the  simple  dramatic 
representation  which  calls  the  world  to  the  Upper  Ammergau,  where 
simple  peasants  act  out  the  scene  ;  these  events  of  Passion  Week  come 
up  again  and  again,  for  the  world's  study,  its  questioning,  its  ad- 
miration, and  its  tears  !  Little  wonder.  And  as  little,  that  he  who 
hears  the  story  told  by  a  new  narrator,  or  looks  upon  it  from  a  new 
standpoint,  always  finds  in  it  as  it  goes  on,  something  that  is  new. 

Jesus  had  already  excited  the  anger  of  the  coteries  of  priests  and  politi- 
cians at  Jerusalem.  He  did  not  like  them,  they  did  not  like  him. 
Nothing  more  different  from  his  almost  festive  summer  life  in  Galilee, 
than  the  hard  collisions,  now  with  priests,  now  with  policemen  of 
temple  courts  and  the  streets  of  the  city.  Such  a  city  !  A  petty  pro- 
vincial capital  numbering  perhaps  50,000  people,  sustaining  among 
themselves  all  the  jealousies  and  intrigues  of  a  garrison  town,  and  at 
the  same  time  those  of  an  ecclesiastical  metroiX)lis.    Magnify  a  hundred 

(5) 


5  EASTER. 

fold  the  petty  squabbles  of  an  English  provincial  cathedral  town,  and 
you  have,  I  suppose,  some  idea  of  the  local  politics  of  Jerusalem.  It  is 
to  be  remembered  that  here  only  were  the  priests  of  the  Jewish  religion, 
here  only  was  the  temple,  here  were  all  the  sacrifices.  But  the 
spirit  of  Judaism  was  now  far  higher  and  nobler  than  this  old-fashioned 
butchery  of  oxen  and  sheep  in  worship, — though  that  had  sei-ved  well 
enough  for  the  expression  of  faith  of  a  simple  pastoral  age.  The  spirit 
of  Judaism  had  risen  to  union  in  prayer,  to  instruction  in  the  meet- 
ing-house,— it  assembled  congregations  and  preachers  in  every  Nazareth 
and  Capernaum  of  the  land.  The  priests — inheriting  their  place  and 
privilege — looked  jealously  at  all  this  body  of  teachers,  some  of  them 
men  of  great  distinction  but  none  of  them  priests.  Imagine,  then, 
with  what  disgust  they  must  have  looked  upon  a  teacher  like  this  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  who  came  from  the  ranks,  a  radical  come-outer  as  they 
saw  him,  who  spoke  with  a  Galilean  accent,  and  was  followed  by 
Galilean  admirers,  when  he  came  into  temple  courts,  to  denounce  and 
to  ridicule  them  and  their  old-time  butcheries.  Nothing  in  the  whole 
story  is  easier  to  account  for,  than  the  dislike  which  Jerusalem  had  for 
Jesus  and  his  dislike  for  the  leaders  of  opinion  and  life  in  Jerusalem. 

The  alliance  of  the  political  leaders  with  the  church  leaders  at  Jeru- 
salem, was  of  the  very  closest.  As  long  ago  as  the  time  of  Herod  the 
Great,  the  Herod  who  killed  the  infants  at  Bethlehem,  he  had  ennobled 
the  family  of  one  of  his  many  wives  by  making  them  High  Priests,  and 
this  family  connection  again  and  again  appears  in  the  line  of  the  priest- 
hood. This  family  alternated,  at  irregular  intervals,  in  this  high  office 
with  Annas  and  his  family.  Annas  himself  held  it  for  seven  years,  and 
afterward  was  the  real  director  of  affairs  when  one  of  his  sons,  or  his 
son-in-law,  was  nominally  in  power.  At  the  time  of  Jesus'  death  the 
nominal  High  Priest  was  Joseph  Kaiaphas,  the  son-in-law  of  Annas, 
but  Annas,  or  Hanan  in  the  Hebrew  spelling,  was  himself  still  the 
advising  and  really  efficient  head  of  the  priesthood,  and  with  the 
family  of  the  Herods,  which  still  had  influence,  he  was  on  intimate  terms. 
Archelaus,  the  Herod  who  had  reigned  in  Jerusalem,  was  now  deposed, 
•and  Judaea  was  held  by  Pilate  as  a  Roman  province.  But  another 
Herod,  the  tetrarch  of  Galilee,  was  in  the  city,  as  any  other  Jew  might 
be,  for  the  religious  solemnities  of  the  season.  Between  him  and  Pilate, 
as  the  gospel  tells  us,  there  had  been  some  quarrel,  but  they   made 


PALM    SUNDAY.  7 

friends  over  the  Saviour's  body,  and  their  political  relationships  had 
always  placed  them  on  the  same  side,  the  side  of  a  dry  and  hard  deter- 
mination to  maintain  things  as  they  were. 

All  these  priests  and  governors  had  had  enough  and  more  than  enough 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Once  and  again  he  had  been  in  Jerusalem, 
driving  the  people  wild  with  enthusiasm,  calling  away  men's  attention 
from  venerable  forms  of  worship,  and  saying,  without  hesitation,  that 
there  were  ways  of  coming  to  God  much  nearer  than  these  ways  of  al- 
tar and  temple.  Once  and  again  the  wounded  susceptibilities  of  these 
leaders  had  roused  them  against  him,  to  arrest  him,  to  stone  him  for 
blasphemy,  to  excommunicate  his  followers.  But,  thus  far,  the  evident 
popular  favor  had  been  on  his  side  and  had  been  too  much  for  them. 
The  last  time  he  was  in  the  neighborhood,  however,  the  old  High  Priest 
Annas,  whose  nod  was  law,  had  given  the  word,  impatiently  enough, 
"  Ye  know  nothing  at  all,  if  you  do  not  see  that  it  is  better  for  us  that 
this  one  man  die,  than  that  all  of  us  be  overturned  together,  and  our 
nation  destroyed,  in  the  loosening  of  all  ties  which  will  come  out  of 
such  heresy."  Unconscious  prophecy  !  But  it  was  spoken  with  no 
thought  of  the  sense  we  give  these  words !  Better  he  should  die,  if 
things  cannot  otherwise  be  kept  as  they  are.  That  was  what  the  old 
High  Priest  meant.     It  was  his  "  word  of  order." 

It  is  to  a  city  whose  higher  circles  are  thus  bitter  against  him,  that 
Jesus  comes  down  again,  on  the  day  of  triumph  which  we  call  Palm 
Sunday.  The  wave  of  enthusiasm  around  him  is  the  jubilant  delight 
of  a  few  hundred  Galileans,  who  are  now  sure  that  the  time  is  come, 
and  that  Israel  shall  enjoy  her  own  again.  The  white  city  below 
him,  beyond  the  steep  valley,  covers  the  hard,  set  propriety  and 
insulted  dignity  of  these  determined  priests.  These  Galileans  know 
nothing  and  care  nothing.     But  Jesus  knows,  and  he  foresees  the  whole. 

He  loves  Jerusalem  as  every  child  of  David  and  of  Abraham  loved 
her.  "  If  I  forget  thee,  oh  Jerusalem,  may  my  right  hand  forget  her 
cunning  !"  "Beautiful  for  situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  is  Mount 
Zion,  the  city  of  the  Great  King."  Such  were  the  songs  they  had  been 
singing  as  they  marched,  with  the  enthusiasm  with  which  to-day  we 
sing, 

"  Jerusalem,  my  happy  home, 
Name  ever  dear  to  me ! " 


O  EASTER. 

And  with  the  same  idea  of  a  possible  city  of  God.,  the  home  of 
ever)'  hallowed  aspiration.  But  the  real  Jerusalem,  this  hot-bed  of 
priestly  intrigue  and  political  corruption  !  Always  its  habits,  methods 
and  vices  had  been  hateful  to  Jesus,  and  always  he  had  condemned 
them.  Not  hard  to  make  out  that  stupid,  narrow  dryness  of  the  thou- 
sand-year-old little  town,  which  was  left  one  side  of  the  movement 
of  the  world,  and  was  jsriding  itself  on  its  traditions  of  the  days  of  David. 
Take  your  picture  from  any  place  you  know  of  fifty  thousand  people. 
Imagine  such  a  town,  half-garrison  and  half-cathedral,  all  living  on 
the  State  or  the  Church,  all  satisfied  that  country  folks  are  fools, 
indeed,  that  all  the  world,  outside  their  own  walls,  are  of  some  lower 
order  of  being.  Remember  of  Jerusalem  that  its  only  associations  of 
business  with  the  outside,  are  when  three  or  four  times  a  year  these 
people  came  in,  in  their  reverent  faith,  to  render  worship  which  they 
can  render  nowhere  outside  these  walls.  If  you  care  to  go  farther,  im- 
agine the  seventy  notables  of  such  a  town  assembled  in  council,  pur- 
blind in  their  ignorance  of  God's  ways  in  the  larger  world,  working 
their  cause  in  the  dark,  backwards  and  forwards,  like  so  many  moles  in 
the  ground,  sure  that  they  and  they  only  are  the  centres  of  creation,  and 
that  their  interpretation  of  God,  Law,  Prophet  and  Messiahship  is  the 
only  interpretation.  That  is  the  Sanhedrim  or  Council  of  70  of  the 
real  Jerusalem,  on  which  Jesus  looked,  even  as  the  echo  of  the  songs 
which  described  the  ideal  Jerusalem  rang  in  his  ears.  No  wonder  that 
as  he  looked  down  on  such  a  city  he  wept  over  it ! 

"  Oh  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  if  thou  hadst  known  in  this  thy  day,  the 
things  which  belong  unto  peace  !  But  now  are  they  hid  from  thine 
eyes ! " 

He  had  been  willing  to  accept  the  loyal  homage  of  his  Galilean 
friends.  A  passage  in  the  prophet  Zechariah  said,  "  Thy  king  cometh 
unto  thee  meek,  and  sitting  on  an  ass,"  contrasting  the  Messiah  thus 
with  the  lordly  state  of  human  royalty.  Jesus  accepts  that  figure, 
sends  for  an  ass  to  ride  upon  as  he  leaves  Martha's  and  Mary's  home  in 
Bethany,  and  in  this  humble  state  turns  the  brow  of  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  and  meets  the  throng  of  enthusiasts  who  are  pouring  out,  in 
knowledge  that  he  is  coming. 

It  is  the  most  beautiful  as  it  is  the  easiest  entrance  into  Jerusalem. 


PALM    SUNDAY.  q 

To  this  hour  travelers  even  from  the  west  pass  round  the  city  to  enter 
on  this  side,  and  the  general  view  from  the  Mount  of  Olives  is  that  from 
which  they  derive  their  abiding  impression  of  the  city.  The  summit  of 
that  hill  is  half  a  mile  from  Jerusalem  and  completely  overlooks  it.  The 
city  itself  from  this  sunvmit  appears  to  be  a  regular  inclined  plain,  sloping 
gently  and  uniformly  from  west  to  east,  or  toward  the  observer.  The 
walls,  almost  in  a  quadrangle,  are  and  were  white  to  the  eye  ;  and  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  quadrangle  is,  that  nearest  to  the  eye.  This  is  the  point, 
which  as  Christ  looked  down,  was  occupied  by  the  gorgeous  temple 
which  Herod  had  built  on  the  site  of  Solomon's,  really  sheeted  with  silver 
in  places,  and  with  gilded  ornaments,  in  the  lavishness  of  that  Eastern 
adornment,  flashing  in  the  sun.  "  Beautiful  for  situation,"  indeed  I  "  Joy 
of  the  whole  world  !"  It  is  this  spectacle,  always  grand  and  always  new, 
which  flashes  on  the  sight  of  the  jubilant  throng  of  Galilean  pilgrims,  jubi- 
lant because  for  the  first  time  the  favorite  whom  they  have  tried  to  crown 
in  vain,  has  assumed  a  symbol  of  triumph,  however  humble.  ''Fear 
not,  daughter  of  Zion,  thy  King  comes  to  thee."  That  is  what  he  said  in 
substance,  when  he  sent  for  the  ass  on  which  he  rode.  Because  he 
says  this,  the  tlirong  of  wayfarers  break  palm  branches  from  the  trees, 
palms  always  emblems  of  immortality  and  victory,  wave  them  in  the 
air,  throw  them  beneath  his  feet,  and  shout,  "  Hosanna  to  the  King  of 
Israel !  Hosanna  to  him  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  !  Hosan- 
na in  the  highest !  "  Yes,  and  the  news  of  triumph  is  borne  already 
into  tlie  city.  Beneath  the  feet  of  purblind  priests  and  outside  of  their 
musty  councils  there  are  those  who  have  listened  at  the  Feast  of  Taberna- 
cles, nay,  who  have  stood  at  the  open  grave  of  Lazarus.  Easy  for  them 
to  catch  the  signal  of  his  approach,  and  they  run  down  the  streets  and  up 
the  hill  to  meet  the  throng,  with  the  same  cry,  "  Hosimna  in  the  high- 
est !" 

The  whole  city  is  moved,  and  catches  up  the  cry.  On  the  eve  of  a 
festival,  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  run  and  see  processions,  indeed, 
they  have  nothing  else  to  do  at  any  time.  A  little  town  like  that,  in  t'le 
carelessness  of  Oriental  life,  would  give  up  half  its  peojjlc  to  the  wel- 
come of  the  popular  young  leader  from  the  North  ;  and  the  OM  Line,  otfi- 
ciating  at  altar,  or  holding  forth  in  temple  courts,  wouM  find  they 
were  quite  forgotten  and  deserted  while  the  pageant  went  <m.     '•  Ye 


lO  EASTER. 

perceive  that  ye  prevail  nothing,"  says  one  of  them  to  another,  "  behold 
the  world  is  gone  after  him."     Unconscious  prophecy  again  !  " 

And  so  the  enlarging  multitude  sweeps  into  the  temple  courts.  The 
mob  from  the  city  catch  for  the  moment  the  impulse  from  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  country,  as  mobs  will.  The  children  even  are  shouting, 
"  Hosanna  !"  "  Master,"  says  some  official  to  Jesus  in  pretended  respect, 
"  can  you  not  silence  these  shouts?"  "  I  tell  you  if  these  should  hold 
their  peace  the  very  stones  would  find  a  voice."  But  the  little  triumph  is 
soon  over.  The  twilight  of  a  short  spring  day  comes  on,  and  he  and 
his  go  out  to  Bethany  for  rest. 

The  counter  lesson  of  that  triumph  is  told  in  the  stormy  passages  of 
the  week,,  in  the  crafty  efforts  to  make  him  commit  himself  as  a  rebel, 
and  in  his  denunciations  of  the  bigotry,  hypocrisy,  and  irreligion,  of  these 
blind  leaders  of  the  blind.  The  last  contrast  of  all,  is  when  the  same 
mob  of  Jerusalem,  having  been  seduced  as  the  leaders  of  mobs  knew  how, 
to  utter  the  other  cr^-,  shouts,  "  Cioicify  !  Crucify  !  "  where  it  did  shout 
"  Hosanna !"  The  contrasted  picture  is  the  view  of  Jerusalem  from 
another  Hill,  as  he  and  John  and  Mary  look  across  upon  it  against  the 
blackness  of  the  angry  storm,  and  as  another  procession  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  Jerusalem,  wringing  their  hands  and  weeping  in  the  bitterness  of 
their  hearts,  return  from  Calvary  to  the  gates  of  the  heartless  city.  The 
stoiy  of  Palm  Sunday  is  not  complete  without  the  counter  story  of  the 
Friday  which  followed. 

We  may  say  that  its  warning  is  the  warning  to  all  cities,  and  all 
countries,  which  have  not  a  ready  welcome  to  him  who  cometh 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Lord," 

Who  are  more  eager  for  their  old  customs,  or  for  the  preservation  of 
their  forms  of  etiquette,  or  for  the  ti'ade  that  they  have  with  some  Edom 
or  some  Egypt,  than  they  are  to  hear  the  Word  of  the  Living  God,  and 
to  welcome  any  messenger  of  His,  though  he  be  but  a  carpenter  from 
the  Hill-countrv,  riding  on  an  ass  from  the  Highway. 

"  You  drive  me  away,"  said  Jesus  sadly.  "  The  time  will  come  when 
you  will  need  a  message  from   God,   and   shall   listen  for  it  in  vain. 


PALM   SUNDAY.  II 

Armies  shall  gird  you  in.  These  sacrifices  shall  be  impotent  to  buy  heav- 
en's favor.  These  long  prayers  shall  be  flung  back  and  their  worthless- 
ness  be  shown.  In  the  fall  of  your  pride,  nay,  in  the  ruin  of  your  city, 
you  may  be  willing  to  say  what  you  chide  these  children  for  saying  now, 

"  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord," 

Who  comes  in  the  name  of  the  Eternal.  He  speaks  the  thing  which  is, 
and  cannot  change.     I  Am  has  sent  him. 

We  should  better  catch  the  spirit  of  the  scene,  if  the  words,  '*  the  name 
of  the  Lord,"  thus  expressed  to  us,  what  they  expressed  to  them  :  the 
absolute  Law,  the  Law  of  Eternity. 

Here  is  one  who  comes  in  the  name  of  the  Eternal. 

Imagine  such  an  announcement  brought  of  a  sudden  into  a  meeting 
of  the  real  governors  of  one  of  our  cities,  Boston,  Chicago,  New  York, 
or  New  Orleans.  They  have  come  together  to  agree  about  the  appoint- 
ments, to  settle  a  quarrel  in  the  Council  Chamber,  or  to  arrange  about 
some  votes  with  this  or  that  leader  of  men.  The  door-keeper  flings 
open  the  door  and  announces  a  stranger. 

"  Is  he  a  delegate  from  any  ward?" 

"No." 

"  Has  he  a  letter  from  Mr.  Cleveland  or  Mr.  Blaine.?" 

"  Oh  no." 

"  Does  he  represent  the  County  Committee,  or  the  State  Commit- 
tee.?" 

"  Oh  no." 

"  Then  what  is  he  here  for?     Send  him  away." 

"Oh,  he  has  come  to  tell  us  what  is,  what  always  is,  and  always 
must  be.     He  comes  in  the  name  of  the  Eternal." 

"  Then  we  don't  want  him  here.  Let  him  hire  a  hall.  Gentlemen, 
we  will  go  on  with  our  business." 

It  is  exactly  now,  as  it  was  then.  We  drop  the  idea  from  our  Admin- 
istration. We  care  only  for  the  money  that  is  dropped  into  the  treas- 
ury, and  for  the  outward  forms  of  administration. 

Compared  with  taxes,  and  loans,  and  buildings,  and  places, — this 
ofiice  and  that  office,  this  ring  and  that  combination, — how  slightly  and 
feebly  speaks  the  Eternal  Word  !  How  indifferent  are  men  to  this 
carpenter  or  that  fisherman,  who  has  no  word  to  speak  of  adventure 


12  EASTER. 

or  of  wealth,  but  has  only  the  word  of  God  to  proclaim,  and  has  no  cre- 
dentials but  that  he  conies  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  This  man  comes 
to  tell  us  of  God's  law  of  health,  of  what  must  be  in  our  city  if  we 
would  not  have  our  children  die.  That  man  comes  to  tell  us  of  God's 
law  of  purity,  of  what  must  be,  if  manhood  is  not  to  die  out  of  our  sons, 
and  womanhood  from  our  daughters.  Another  comes  to  tell  us  of  the 
law  of  mutual  service,  that  sons  and  daughters  must  bear  each  other's 
burdens.  Another  wants  to  tell  us  of  mutual  kindness  and  good-will, 
that  nation  must  not  lift  up  sword  against  nation,  if  the  Kingdom  is  to 
come.  Such  a  messenger  never  comes  in  state.  There  is  never  a 
trumpeter  before  nor  a  train  of  chariots  and  outriders.  No,  when  they 
say,  "  Lo  Here  or  Lo  There,"  of  such  a  messenger,  you  maybe  safe  if 
you  do  not  go  after  him  nor  follow  him.  His  entry  into  your  city  is 
some  humble  ovation.  Meek  and  lowly  he  comes  to  you,  on  the  ass's 
colt  he  has  picked  up  by  the  highway.  It  is  not  what  he  looks  like  which 
you  are  to  judge  by.  It  is  the  Word  he  has  to  speak  to  you.  It  is  not 
the  procession  of  his  followers  which  gives  him  dignity.  It  is  the  name 
in  which  he  comes.     Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord. 

Wo  indeed  to  Jerusalem,  because  she  cannot  see  the  infinite  worth  of 
such  a  prophet. 

Blessing  to  any  city  which  will  look,  not  for  the  things  that  are  seen, 
but  at  the  Eternal  truth  which  is  not  seen  ! 

Blessing  to  any  city,  which  will  welcome  any  word  which  speaks  and 
pleads  for  the  eternal  good  even  of  the  least  of  her  little  ones. 

Blessing  to  any  citj',  which  is  not  so  weighted  down  by  the  burdens 
of  her  own  prosperity,  but  that  she  can  look  upward  and  forward  to 
the  true  prosperity  of  the  City  of  the  Living  God. 

Blessing  to  any  city,  which  to  any  voice  of  the  Spirit  of  truth,  has 
prompt  and  reverent  answer ;  which  from  its  heart,  in  its  law,  in  its 
social  order  and  in  its  daily  life,  will  say, 

"  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 


PALM    SUNDAY. 

BY  JOHN    KEBLE. 

Ye  Whose  hearts  are  beating  high 
With  the  pulse  of  Poesy, 
Heirs  of  more  than  royal  race, 
Framed  by  Heaven's  peculiar  grace, 
God's  own  work  to  do  on  earth, 

(If  the  word  be  not  too  bold,)' 
Giving  virtue  a  new  birth. 

And  a  life  that  ne'er  grows  old, — 

Sovereign  masters  of  all  hearts  f 
Know  ye  who  hath  set  your  parts  ? 
He  who  gave  you  breath  to  sing. 
By  whose  strength  ye  sweep  the  string, 
He  has  chosen  you,  to  lead 

His  Hosannas  here  beiow ;  — < 
Mount,  and  claim  your  glorious  meed ; 

Linger  not  with  sin  and  woe. 

But  if  ye  should  hold  your  peace, 
Deem  not  that  the  song  would  cease. 
Angels  round  His  glory-throne. 
Stars,  His  guiding  hand  that  own, 
Flowers  that  grow  beneath  our  feet, 

Stones  in  earth's  dark  womb  that  rest, 
High  and  low  in  choir  shall  meet, 

Ere  His  name  shall  be  unblest. 
('3) 


14  EASTER. 


Lord,  by  every  minstrel  tongue  ' 
Be  Thy  praise  so  duly  sung. 
That  Thine  angels'  harps  may  ne'er 
Fail  to  find  fit  echoing  here  : 
We  the  while,  of  meaner  birth, 

Who  in  that  divinest  spell 
Dare  not  hope  to  join  on  earth, 

Give  us  grace  to  listen  v^^ell. 

But  should  thankless  silence  seal 
Lips,  that  might  half  Heaven  reveal. 
Should  bards  in  idol-hymns  profane 
The  sacred,  soul-enthralling  strain, 
(As  in  this  bad  world  below 

Noblest  things  find  vilest  using,) 
Then,  Thy  power  and  mercy  show, 

In  vile  things  noble  breath  infusing ; 

Then  waken  into  sound  divine 

The  very  pavement  of  Thy  shrine, 

Till  we,  like  Heaven's  star-sprinkled  floor. 

Faintly  give  back  what  we  adore. 

Childlike  though  the  voices  be, 

And  untunable  the  parts, 
Thou  wilt  own  the  minstrelsy. 

If  it  flow  from  childlike  hearts. 


PASSION  WEEK, 


"  Many  believed  on  his  name." — John  ii,  23. 

The  record  of  the  first  public  visit  made  to  Jerusalem  by  the  Saviour 
is  that  many  believed  on  his  name,  but  that  Jesus  did  not  trust  himself 
unto  them.  Nicodemus,  of  whom  only  is  any  detail  given,  came  to 
him  by  night  to  talk  with  him  :  and  it  seems  as  if  this  indicated  his  un- 
willingness to  have  the  interview  known.  This  was  at  the  Passover  in 
the  early  spring.  Of  his  leaving  that  region  this  is  the  account,  "When 
the  Pharisees  had  heard  that  his  disciples  baptized  more  than  John  he 
left  Judaea  for  Galilee."     They  were  jealous  of  him  and  he  went  away. 

The  record  of  his  second  visit  is  that  "the  Jews  persecuted  Jesus," 
because  he  healed  a  man  on  the  Sabbath  day.  "  Then  they  sought  the 
more  to  kill  him  because  he  spake  of  God  as  his  own  Father,  making 
himself  equal  with  God."  That  God  was  his  Father  and  our  Father, 
that  we  are  all  the  children  of  God,  was  the  first  thing  he  had  to  teach 
and  to  make  them  feel.     For  this  they  sought  to  kill  him. 

When  he  came  to  Jerusalem  the  third  time  the  people  were  saying, 
"  When  the  Christ  comes  will  he  do  more  miracles  than  this  man  has 
done  ?"  The  Pharisees  and  chief  priests  on  this  sent  officers  to  take  him. 
But  no  one  laid  hands  on  him.  The  officers  themselves  came  back  to 
their  chiefs  and  said,  "  Never  man  spake  like  this  man."  Day  after  day 
they  stood  face  to  face,  the  priests  dreading  him,  and  he  earnestly  plead- 
ing with  them.  Once  they  took  up  stones  to  cast  at  him,  but  he  left 
the  temple  and  passed  away  unhurt. 

He  was  in  Jerusalem  again  in  the  beginning  of  winter,  at  the  Feast 
of  the  Dedication.  It  is  just  the  same  story  again,  with  harder  ani- 
mosity on  their  part.  They  try  to  make  him  say  he  is  the  Messiah. 
He  says  he  is  the  Son  of  God.  They  try  to  stone  him,  and  he  again 
escapes  from  their  hands. 

U5) 


l6  EASTER. 

All  these  successive  narratives  enable  us  to  stand  in  the  place  of  these 
city  Pharisees  and  Scribes,  when  for  the  fifth  time  this  Nazarene  comes 
down  to  Jerusalem,  at  the  second  Passover.  His  presence  has  been  an 
annoyance  at  everj'  visit :  an  annoyance  which  has  developed  into  contest 
at  the  last.  All  the  time  the  reputation  of  his  movement  on  the  East  of 
Jordan,  in  Galilee,  and  even  in  the  provinces  beyond  Galilee,  is 
brought  down  to  town.  Who  is  he  ?  What  does  he  say  he  is  ?  What 
does  Herod  think  of  him  ?  Will  Herod  put  him  out  of  our  way  as  he 
did  John  the  Baptist  ?  They  say  he  has  not  been  seen  in  Galilee  for  a 
few  weeks  past.  Is  there  perhaps  some  hope  that  he  will  not  come  to 
this  Feast  at  all  ? 

They  sought  therefore  for  Jesus  and  said  among  themselves,  as  they 
stood  in  the  temple,  "What  think  ye,  that  he  will  not  come  to  the 
Feast  ?  Now  both  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  had  given  command- 
ment that  if  any  man  knew  where  he  was,  he  should  declare  it  that 
they  might  take  him."  Their  policy  has-  been  completely  indicated  by 
Gaiaphas.  The  Council-  said,  "If  we  suffer  this  man  to  go  on  thus,  all 
will  believe  on  him  :  and  the  Romans  will  come  and  take  away  our 
place  and  our  nation."  To  whom  Caiaphas  replied,  "Ye  know  noth- 
ing nor  do  ye  consider  that  it  is  expedient  for  us  that  one  man  should 
die  for  the  people." 

They  are  but  the  most  broken  fragments  of  a  history,  all  these  little 
hints  which  lead  us  along  from  step  to  step  of  their  increasing  hatred. 
But  the  longest  annals,  in  the  nicest  detail,  would  hardly  make  a  more 
distinct  picture.  If  any  one  had  told  Nicodemus  or  his  companions  at 
the  first  Passover,  that  they  would  kill  the  Galilean,  brutally,  and  with 
the  whole  force  of  the  mob  of  Jerusalem,  they  would  have  cried,  "  Nev- 
er." He  was  of  no  such  consequence.  Indeed  he  seems,  in  some 
regards,  "  a  very  amiable  and  deserving  young  man,"  they  would  have 
said,  if  only  he  were  not  upset  by  his  notion  that  he  came  direct  from 
God.  But  month  by  month  goes  by,  summer,  autumn,  winter,  he 
never  changes  ;  and  they,  alas  !  do  change.  The  spring  season  comes  on. 
The  preparations  for  the  Festival  go  forward.  There  is,  as  I  said,  just 
the  hope  that  he  will  not  come  at  all,  and  that  all  ceremony  may  go 
forward  in  the  good  old  way,  when,  on  the  day  after  the  Sabbath,  in  the 
midst  of  the  pilgrims  from  the  East  and  North,  here  is  a  throng,  a  pro- 


PASSION   WEEK.  1/ 

cession,  cheering,  and  singing,  "  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David!" 
"  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  !"  "  Hosanna  in 
the  Highest !  "  Palm  leaves  are  scattered  in  the  streets.  Children  are 
shouting  and  singing  in  the  temple.  And  here — as  calmly  as  if  we  had 
never  driven  him  out  last  year — here  comes  again  the  Nazarene  carpenter. 

"Who  is  this.?" 

"  This  is  Jesus,  the  prophet  from  Nazareth  of  Galilee." 

And  he  has  abated  no  jot  from  last  year's  pretensions.  Just  as  he 
did  before  he  drives  the  hucksters  from  the  temple  courts.  "  My  Father's 
house  a  house  of  merchandise  i "  And  when  they  come  to  him  to  ask 
him  to  do,  what  they  cannot  do,  and  silence  these  boys  cheering  with 
enthusiasm  : 

"  I  tell  you,  if  these  should  hold  their  peace,  the  stones  would  imme- 
diately cry  out !  " 

He  has  not  receded.  Not  he.  He  comes  in  triumph  now,  where  last 
year  he  came  secretly  and  alone.  Unless  priest  and  Pharisee  take  a 
stand,  who  shall  say  what  will  come  ?  The  whole  tragedy  culminates 
therefore.  Every  hour  shows  how  it  culminates.  "  The  chief  Priests 
and  the  Scribes  and  the  Leaders  of  the  people  sought  how  they 
might  destroy  him:  and  they  could  not  find  what  they  might  do,  for 
all  the  people  were  eagerly  attentive  to  hear  him."  And  the  next 
morning :  "  Tell  us  by  what  authority  doest  thou  these  things,  and  who 
gave  thee  this  authority  ?  "  I  will  also  ask  you  one  thing.  "  The  bap- 
tism of  John,  was  it  from  heaven  or  of  men?"  That  is  a  hard  ques- 
tion. If  they  say,  "  From  heaven."  "  Why  did  ye  not  receive  him?" 
But  if  we  say,  "  From  men."  Ah,  "  We  are  afraid  of  the  people.  For 
all  the  people  held  John  as  a  prophet."  So  they  had  to  say,  ''  We  do 
not  know."  "  Then  I  do  not  tell  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these 
things.  But  what  think  ye  ?  A  certain  man  had  two  sons,  and  he  came 
to  the  first  and  said,  Son,  go,  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard."  And  with 
this  beginning  he  goes  on,  just  as  he  did  when  he  first  preached  at  Naz- 
areth, to  compare  outcast  with  Pharisee ;  child  of  sin,  with  child  of 
Abraham  ;  to  show  that  God  had  no  Peculiar  People  ;  that  if  the  Gen- 
tiles did  His  will  He  was  as  well  pleased  as  if  the  Jews  did  it.  "  Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God  before  you.     For  John  came  unto  you  in  the  way  of  righteousness, 


1 8  EASTER. 

and  ye  believed  him  not.  But  the  publicans  believed  him.  Yes,  the  very 
harlots  believed  him, — and  ye,  although  ye  saw  that,  changed  not  your 
thought  that  ye  might  believe  him.  And  I  will  tell  you  another  para- 
ble.    There  was  a  householder  who  planted  a  vineyard — " 

And  from  that  beginning  he  went  on  to  paint  the  picture  of  Israel's 
steady  decline  and  fall.  We  are  used  to  it.  We  have  read  it  and  heard  it 
read,  with  spirit  or  without,  mechanically  or  eagerly.  But,  after  all  the 
mechanism  or  rote  of  eighteen  centuries,  it  is  still  a  terrible  picture,  as 
you  see  at  last  the  crisis.  "  What  will  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  do?  He 
will  come  and  destroy  these  husbandmen,  he  will  give  the  fruit  to  oth- 
ers ! "  Everybody  was  moved.  Everybody  was  excited  with  the 
prophecy.  "  God  forbid,  God  forbid  !  "  they  groaned.  And  he  looked 
on  them  and  said,  "  Have  ye  not  read  this  scripture,  '  The  stone  that 
the  builders  rejected,  has  become  the  head  stone  of  the  cornice  ?'  The 
Kingdom  of  God  vsall  be  taken  from  you  and  be  given  to  a  nation 
bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof." 

"■  They  knew  he  spake  of  them,"  says  the  simple  record.  Of  course 
they  knew  it.  But  they  feared  the  people.  Of  course  they  feared  the 
people.  It  is  worth  remembering,  that  though  the  people  is  figured 
only  by  that  low  mob  of  Jerusalem,  the  People  is  already  bom.  They 
left  him  and  went  away. 

He  did  not  go  away.  He  began  again.  "The  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
is  like  a  man  who  made  a  marriage-feast."  And  with  this  story,  just  as 
he  did  at  the  beginning  at  Nazareth,  he  shows  how  the  guests  invited 
reject  the  feast,  and  those  from  the  highways  and  the  by-ways  enjoy  it. 
It  is  the  only  thing  he  will  say  to  them  :  that  the  sons  of  Abraham  have 
no  precedence,  have  flung  away  all  advantage ;  feast,  kingdom,  life, 
heaven,  are  the  equal  blessing  of  every  child  of  God.  There  are  none 
base  born  !  All  are  of  the  blood  royal ! 

Then  they  try  to  catch  him  in  sedition,  or  to  break  him  down  before 
the  people.  "  Shall  we  give  tribute  to  Ceesar?"  "  What  is  the  great 
commandment?"  "Which  brother  of  these  seven  should  marry  this 
woman  in  the  other  world  you  talk  of? "  But  he  turns  the  tables 
here,  and  from  that  moment  there  is  no  more  questioning.  No  !  They 
are  too  angry — and  he  is  too  sad.  He  speaks  his  last  word  of  protest. 
"  Woe  unto  you.  Scribes  and  Pharisees."     He  will  not  die  without 


PASSION   WEEK.  I9 

showing  such  hypocrisy  for  what  it  is.  "  On  you  will  come  all  the 
righteous  blood  shed  upon  the  earth  !  Yes,  it  will  come  on  this  very 
generation  !  " 

"Oh  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which  killest  the  prophets,  and  stonest 
these  who  have  been  sent  unto  thee  !  How  often  would  I  have  gathered 
thy  children  together  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not !  Behold,  your  house  is  left  to  you  desolate.  Ye  will 
not  see  me  henceforth  until  ye  shall  say, 

"  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 
And  he  went  out  and  departed  from  the  temple,  and  never  entered  it 
again. 

"Ye  shall  seek  me  and  ye  shall  not  find  me,  and  whither  I  go  ye 
cannot  come."     This  had  been  a  part  of  his  farewell. 

"  Will  he  go  to  the  dispersed  among  the  Gentiles?"  Not  he.  That 
is  a  question  which  such  men  put,  and  they  only.  He  knows  that  this 
is  the  hour,  or  "that  his  time  has  come."  And  he  awaits  the  issue 
with  his  friends.  For  these  friends  he  speaks  the  last  words  of  instruc- 
tion or  of  warning.  With  these  friends  he  joins  in  the  New  Year's  festi- 
val of  their  nation  ;  sitting  as  a  father  would  sit  at  a  Thanksgiving  feast, 
he  asks  them  all  to  remember  him.  and  to  remember  him  always.  And 
they  go  over  to  the  Mount  of  Olives  as  is  their  custom,  and  he  parts 
from  them  to  go  into  the  garden  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  pray. 

I  am  not  trying  to  follow  his  life  nor  theirs.  I  am  trying  to  trace  this 
history  as  it  unrolled  for  these  dignitaries  of  the  temple  ;  these  priests 
and  senators  who  were  leading  Jerusalem  and  Israel  to  their  ruin. 
These  men,  by  the  natural  downward  haste  of  bigotry,  these  men.  who, 
last  year,  would  have  laughed  you  to  scorn,  if  you  told  them  that  a  car- 
penter from  Nazareth  could  turn  them  from  their  track,  this  way  or 
♦hat  way,  these  men  have  in  successive  months  gone  through  all  the 
stages  of  hatred.  They  have  warned  people  not  to  harbor  him.  They 
have  warned  them  not  to  come  near  him.  They  have  tried  to  arrest 
him,  they  have  tried  to  stone  him  and  have  failed.  And  now,  they 
have  tried  to  make  him  commit  himself  in  the  presence  of  their  rulers 
and  of  his,  anJ  they  have  failed  again.  The  people  cannot  be  relied 
upon.     The  people  arc  not  sorry   to  listen  to  parable  or  invective  so 


20  EASTER. 

bravely  spoken  against  the  petty  oligarchy  which  struts  its  hour  and 
keeps  them  under.  The  people  may  be  on  this  side,  may  be  on  that  side. 
But  we,  chief  priests  and  senators,  we  are  now^here  unless  this  Nazarene 
is  put  down  before  this  week  is  over.  Why,  there  has  not  been  a  feast 
since  he  came  to  the  surface,  in  which  he  has  not  been  the  chief  and  we 
ridiculed  as  if  captives  in  his  royal  train  ! 

It  is  to  such  men  that  there  comes,  just  after  one  of  these  invectives, 
Judas  Iscariot,  the  thirteenth  in  the.Nazarene's  company,  who  has  given 
to  that  number,  thirteen,  a  bad  name,  from  that  day  to  this  dav.  He  has 
blighted  his  own  name  with  the  same  blight,  so  that  the  proud  name 
of  Judah,  Lion  among  the  tribes  of  Israel,  prince  and  king,  has  not 
since  he  died  been  given  to  any  child  in  the  Christendom  he  did  not 
crush,  no,  though  Judah  were  also  the  name  of  a  brother  of  the  Lord. 
And  Iscariot,  the  name  that  night  of  a  village  on  the  slope  of  Edom,  is 
since  that  night  the  definition  of  traitor  in  every  language  spoken  in 
Christian  lands.  To  these  puzzled,  hateful,  angry  lords  of  an  expiring 
oligarchy,  distrustful  of  themselves,  of  their  own  officers,  of  their  own 
future,  there  comes  their  fit  coadjutor  and  companion,  Judas  Iscariot  the 
traitor.  "I  will  betray  him  to  you."  "For  how  much?"  "Well! 
would  you  give  as  much  as  30  pieces  of  silver.?"  "It  is  a  bargain." 
And  on  that  great  bargain  they  clasp  hands. 

So  that  while  Jesus  and  his  own  are  still  at  supper,  while  he  is  say- 
ing in  the  last  prayer,  "  Those  that  thou  gavest  me  I  have  kept,  and 
none  of  them  is  lost,  but  perdition's  child,"  Judas  is  in  the  presence  of  the 
rulers,  they  are  telling  off  the  guards,  men  are  looking  at  the  blades  of 
their  swords,  are  swinging  their  clubs,  are  falling  into  order  in  the 
shade  of  the  guard-house,  that  the  bright  moon  may  not  show  that  any 
arrest  is  planned.  He  counts  his  hours  rightly.  He  leads  them  also 
across  Kedron.  He  enters  beneath  the  olive  trees  into  the  court  of  the 
garden,  where  Jesus  is  just  awakening  the  three  sleepers  for  the  last 
time.  No  question  w^hom  to  arrest,  for  the  traitor  pushes  his  way  into 
the  group,  "  '  Hail,  Master,'  and  kissed  him." 

"  Who  is  it  that  you  seek  ?  "  he  says  to  them. 

"Jesus  of  Nazareth." 

"  I  am  he.  If  you  seek  me,  take  me,  and  let  these  go."  So  careful, 
from  the  first,  of  his  friends.  • 

"  Are  you  come  out  against  me  as  if  I  were  a  midnight  robber,  with 


PASSION   WEEK.  21 

your  clubs  and  your  swords  ?  I  have  been  sitting  daily  with  you  in  the 
temple,  and  you  laid  no  hands  on  me.  But  this  is  your  hour,  and  the 
power  of  darkness."  Meanw^hile  they  are  binding  him,  and  they  lead 
him  away. 

In  these  preludes  you  have  the  key-note  for  all  the  examinations,  all 
the  taunts,  all  the  doubts  of  that  tedious  night,  and  for  all  the  cruelty  of 
the  next  day.  By  the  time  the  sun  is  risen  and  the  people  of  the  city 
are  abroad,  the  plot  is  far  enough  forward  for  any  fear  of  the  people  to 
be  dismissed.  A  mob  is  very  terrible,  but  it  is  very  fickle  and  it  sides 
very  fatally  with  the  stronger  party.  "  Let  our  criminal  be  stripped  and 
bound,  let  him  be  kept  where  he  cannot  speak  to  this  cursed  people  ;  give 
us  a  chance  to  contrast  Barabbas,  their  favorite,  against  this  Nazarene 
whom  they  hardly  know,  and  we  can  manage  the  people.  Nay,  we  can 
turn  the  people  against  this  Pilate,  he  is  cursed,  too."  On  the  weakness 
of  Pilate  hung  the  fortunes  of  that  day. 

They  play  off  Pilate  against  the  mob,  and  the  mob  against  Pilate. 
Hour  after  hour  the  tumult  quickens.  The  narrow  streets  of  the  little  city 
see  this  procession  and  that  procession,  as  the  King  of  the  Jews  is  sent  to 
Herod,  and  as  Herod  sends  him  back  to  the  Romans.  All  Pilate's  force 
is  under  arms,  never  doubt  that.  But  what  a  handful,  when  you  think 
of  this  Asiatic  mob,  hating  him,  hating  them,  and  hating  the  Caesar  for 
whom  he  stands  and  they.  The  end  can  be  foretold  from  the  beginning. 
"  When  Pilate  saw  therefore  that  he  could  prevail  nothing,"  but  that  an 
insurrection  was  before  him,  what  was  one  peasant's  life,  more  or  less, 
to  Pilate,  or  to  Rome?  "  He  took  water  and  washed  his  hands  before 
them." 

"  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this  just  person." 

"  Then  delivered  he  him  unto  them  to  be  crucified." 

That  is  an  awful  picture,  which  a  great  master  has  drawn,  of  the 
horror  of  the  conspirators,  after  their  plot  has  succeeded,  after  he  is 
nailed  to  the  cross  and  hangs  there  dying.  What  would  not  every 
man  of  them  do,  even  Annas,  even  Caiaphas,  if  he  could  undo  the 
horrid  work  of  that  fatal  day  ?  Notice  how  each  actor  whom  we  see  in 
it  begs  us  to  know  that  it  is  no  deed  of  his. 

Poor  Pilate  disappears  from  the  story,  saying,  "  I  am  innocent  of  the 
blood  of  this  just  man." 


22  EASTER. 

The  centurion  who  obeyed  because  Rome  bade  him,  as  he  would 
have  stood  at  his  post  had  Mt.  Zion  vomited  fire,  said  while  he  obeyed, 
*'  Truly  this  was  a  righteous  man." 

The  women  of  Jerusalem  wept  as  he  passed  by. 

And  though  one  of  these  poor  thieves  charged  him  with  being  the 
cause  of  their  death,  the  other  bravely  says,  "He  has  done  nothing 
amiss."  Nay,  Annas  and  Caiaphas  themselves,  only  a  few  weeks  after, 
shake  off  the  charge  with  a  ghastly  indignation,  when  they  ask  the 
apostles  if  they  mean  to  bring  this  man's  blood  upon  them.  And  when 
poor  Judas  stammers  out,  '•  I  have  sinned  in  that  I  have  betrayed 
innocent  blood,"  they  stammer  in  reply,  "  What  is  that  to  us-f* 
What  is  that  to  us?  See  thou  to  that."  If  the  night  of  Friday  closes 
in  with  abject  wretchedness  to  John,  and  Jaines,  and  Andrew,  and 
Peter,  what  is  it  to  Annas,  and  Caiaphas,  and  Alexander,  and  the 
rest  of  them  ? 

There  are  two  who  have  not  consented  nor  borne  part  in  their  act, 
"faithful  among  the  faithless,"  two  out  of  seventy  rulers  of  Israel,  whose 
eye  is  clear  enough  to  look  beyond  Israel,  and  they  bear  the  body 
and  lay  it  tenderly  in  the  new  tomb,  in  the  garden  hard  by  the  place 
where  he  was  crucified.  They  roll  a  great  stone  to  the  entrance  of  the 
tomb,  and  in  the  night  again,  after  such  a  day,  leave  it  there  with  the 
reverence  due  to  death.  And  Mary  Magdalene  was  there,  with  the 
other  Mary,  sitting  over  against  the  sepulchre. 

And  do  you  remember  that  their  service  of  this  very  morning  is  a 
service  of  death  ?  It  is  because  he  is  dead,  because  they  know  that  he  is 
dead,  that  they  bear  their  spices  for  his  embalmment !  What  is  to  them 
that  mystic  prophecy  of  his  of  the  third  day.''  They  have  seen  him  die 
and  they  know  the  end  too  well. 

What  is  it  to  Peter  and  Andrew,  to  James  and  Johu,  to  Philip  and 
Nathaniel  and  the  rest?  Had  they  not  hoped  for,  almost  seen,  the 
Kingdom  ?  And  now  where  is  the  King?  Have  they  not  been  preach- 
ing, "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  here"?  And  now  what  mockery  in 
ever\-  word  of  that  proclamation,  and  in  every  triumphant  welcome 
w^hich  it  received.  So  is  it  that  that  Sabbath,  last  of  Jev^rish  Sabbaths, 
is  the  longest,  darkest,  blackest  day  of  history. 

For  the  next  morning,  on  this  day,  "  the  first  day  of  the  week,"  says 
the  writer, — why  does  he  not  say  the  first  day  of  the  new  record  of  the 


PASSION   WEEK.  23 

world? — "very  early  in  the  morning,"  even  as  the  first  gray  light  of 
the  sun  dawns,  these  women  are  there  with  their  spices — and  the  tomb 
is  empty. 

"  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory? 
O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?  " 

The  Past  is  past  forever !  The  old  world  of  death  and  tears  and  terror 
is  really  done  with.  The  world  of  Pilate,  and  Barabbas,  and  Judas, 
and  Caiaphas,  and  such  as  they,  has  won  its  last  real  triumphs. 

The  new  world,  the  world  of  life,  and  joy,  and  hope,  the  world  of 
saints  and  of  martyrs,  the  world  of  sons  of  consolation  and  princes  of 
peace,  has  this  day  begun. 

There  will  be  pretended  victories,  as  when  Nero  beheads  Paul  and 
crucifies  Peter,  as  when  Julian  tries  to  set  back  the  hand  upon  the  dial, 
as  when  Rome  again,  as  by  the  hand  of  another  Pilate,  bums  Huss  at 
the  stake.     But  never  a  real  victory  ! 

There  will  be  things  men  call  failure,  as  when  Wyclifle's  ashes  are 
scattered  to  the  seas,  or  when  Coligny  falls  dead  in  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  but  never  a  final  failure  of  the  right. 

John,  James,  Peter,  Andrew,  Mary,  Salome,  the  Magdalene,  see 
now  what  the  real  kingdom  is,  and  how  it  is  to  be  won.  So  on  this 
resurrection  morning  is  bom  the  infant  church,  ready  for  its  victories. 
And  the  cry  of  joy  of  Mary  Magdalene  welcomes  it  to  the  world  which 
it  is  to  save. 


THIRST. 

BY    FREDERIKA    BREMER. 

"  I  THIRST  !  —  O,  grant  the  waters  pure, 
Which  flowed  by  Eden's  rosy  bower  ; 
The  glorious,  fresh,  and  silver  stream, 
The  ever  young,  whose  flashing  gleam 
Once  before  angel  footsteps  rolled  ; 
Whose  sands  were  wisdom's  priceless  gold. 

**  I  thirst !  —  O  bounteous  source  of  Truth, 
Give  coolness  to  my  fevered  youth  ; 
Make  the  sick  heart  more  strong  and  wise ; 
Take  spectral  visions  from  mine  eyes ; 
O,  let  me  quench  my  thirst  in  thee. 
And  pure,  and  strong,  and  holy  be  ! 

"  I  thirst !  —  O  God,  great  Source  of  Love  I 
Infinite  Life  streams  from  above. 
O,  give  one  drop,  and  let  me  live  ! 
The  barren  world  has  nought  to  give ; 
No  solace  have  its  streams  for  me ; 
I  thirst  alone  for  heaven  and  thee." 


THE  VICTORY. 


"  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates ;  and  be  lifted  up,  ye  everlasting  doors,  and  the  King  of 
Glory  shall  come  in." — Psalms,  xxiv,  9. 

In  the  fancies  of  the  early  church  the  supposed  descent  of  Christ  into 
Hell  in  the  period  between  his  crucifixion  and  his  resurrection,  was  a 
favorite  subject  of  discourse  and  song.  Such  discourse  and  song  have 
left  their  track  all  through  the  literature  and  even  the  theology  of  Christ- 
endom. You  will  find  in  Dante  this  and  that  reference  to  Christ's  bear- 
ing in  Hell  made  as  distinctly  as  any  reference  to  his  life  as  recorded 
in  the  Gospel.  All  this  structure  of  phantasy  is  founded  on  the  words 
in  the  Epistle  ascribed  to  Peter,  which  say  he  preached  to  the  spirits  in 
prison,  and  on  the  corresponding  words  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  which 
say  he  descended  into  Hell. 

Of  these  words  in  the  Creed,  I  suppose  the  whole  meaning  to  have 
been  that  his  death  was  real.  But  they  were  sufficient  foundation  for 
the  poets  of  the  early  church  to  build  upon,  and  they  built  gorgeous 
fabric  of  infernal  legend.  We  are  to  remember  that  in  days  when  to 
attack  the  reigning  powers  of  earth  would  have  wrought  misery  to  their 
cause,  they  might  say  with  impunity  what  they  chose,  as  to  the  ruling 
powers  of  Hell. 

In  such  legend  the  words  of  the  twenty-fourth  Psalm,  which  we 
have  sung  to-day,  "  Lift  up  your  heads,  oh,  ye  gates  !  "  were  applied  to 
the  gates  of  Hell,  those  gates  over  which  Dante  writes  the  words, 
*'  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here." 

The  heavy  iron  portal  spiked  above  and  bolted  beneath,  is,  at  the 
word,  to  slide  upward  in  its  grooves,  and  leave  the  pathway  beneath  it 
open  for  the  King.  "Lift  up  your  heads;  rise  up  before  him."  In 
imagery  like  that  to  which  Paradise  Lost  has  accustomed  us,  the 
Prince  of  Tartarus  is  represented  as  taunting  Satan  for  his  failures  in 

(25) 


26  EASTER. 

attempting  to  overthrow  Jesus  and  his  Kingdom.  "  Of  a  sudden,"  says 
Epiphanius  in  a  sermon  on  this  subject,  "  a  voice  of  thunder  was  heard 
in  which  Gabriel  and  Michael  and  an  escort  of  angels  gave  to  the 
astonished  host  of  Hell  this  old  and  eternal  order :  '  Princes,  lift  up 
your  gates  !  Be  lifted  up,  ye  everlasting  doors  !  and  the  King  of  Gloiy 
shall  come  in.' 

"  The  Prince  of  Tartarus  raged  anew  when  he  heard  this  sound,  turned 
against  Satan  and  said  to  him,  '  Go,  fight  this  King  of  Glory.'  Then 
to  his  own  servants  :  '  Close  the  gates  of  brass  ;  push  home  the  bolts  of 
iron,  and  resist  him  to  the  last,  lest  we  ourselves  be  taken  captive.' 
But  the  imprisoned  saints,  who,  under  hellish  power,  have  been  kept 
there  awaiting  their  Redeemer,  cried  out  to  the  Prince  of  Hell,  '  Open 
your  gates  that  the  King  of  Glory  may  come  in,'  and  as  they  made  this 
cry  the  voice  of  the  chorus  of  angels  from  the  outside  was  heard  again, 
'  Princes  of  Hell,  lift  up  your  gates  !  Be  lifted  up,  ye  everlasting  doors, 
and  the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in  !  ' 

"Frightened  and  trembling,  the  Prince  of  Hell  asks,  'Who  is  the 
King  of  Glory.? '  and  it  is  given  to  David,  one  of  his  prisoners  now,  to 
take  up  the  words  which  he  had  sung  a  thousand  years  before,  when 
the  rude  portcullis  of  Jerusalem  first  shot  up  to  give  an  entrance  to  the 
rescued  Ark.  '  The  Lord,  strong  and  mighty.  The  Lord  mighty  in 
battle.  He  is  the  King  of  Glory,'  and  at  these  words  brass,  iron,  and 
adamant  crumble  and  disappear. 

"  The  Lord  Jesus  in  his  human  form  enters  and  enlightens  Hell.  He 
breaks  all  bonds.     He  releases  all  captives  by  his  infinite  power." 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  poet  or  preacher  who  repeated  these 
legends  to  the  church  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  century,  had  any  more 
definite  belief  that  these  were  literal  facts  than  had  the  poet  Milton, 
that  the  events  which  he  describes,  either  in  Hell  or  in  Paradise,  were 
visible  and  actual  occurrences.  There  was  many  a  reason  in  those  ages 
why  poet  or  preacher  should  prefer  to  describe  the  Christian  triumph 
in  a  parable,  than  by  naming  in  separate  detail  the  princes  who  were  to 
be  overthrown  or  the  shrines  which  were  to  be  destroyed.  It  is  only 
in  the  decline  of  spiritual  faith  and  in  the  consequent  hardening  blind- 
ness of  that  idolatry  which  always  makes  the  image  of  more  worth 
than  the  idea,  that  such  fancies  made  their  way  into  the  mythology  of 


THE    VICTORY.  27 

the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the  end  took  their  part  in  that  mass  of  clumsy- 
legend,  which  from  the  eyes  of  an  eager  world  shut  out  the  vision  of  a 
loving  God.  The  legend  itself,  for  any  one  w^ho  w^ill  recall  it,  in  the 
simplicity  in  which  it  originally  formel  itsolf,  is  the  enthusiastic  triumph 
of  a  world  new  born,  for  its  deliverance  from  sin,  from  deatli  and  the 
grave,  from  whatever  princes  of  Hell  and  whatever  kings  of  wicked- 
ness !  It  is  simply  the  song  of  triumph  which  declared  that  for  the 
future  there  is  no  grave  and  is  no  Hell,  such  as  old  terrors  had  imag- 
ined. It  proclaims  that  there  are  no  powers  of  earth  which  can  stand  for 
an  instant  against  the  simple  power  ©f  Heaven.  It  proclaims  that 
there  is  no  death  when  God's  children,  resting  in  His  arms  and  quick- 
ened by  His  love,  have  once  learned  what  life  is,  and  -what  its  infinite 
sway.  The  legend,  in  its  fashion,  if  vou  please  in  its  clumsy  fashion, 
strikes  the  key-note  thus  e:irlv,  of  all  Christian  literature  and  of  all 
Christian  song.  For  you  may  take  this  as  a  general  and  central  princi- 
ple in  criticism,  that  all  science,  literature  or  song,  which  recognizes 
conscious  life  as  the  ruling  principle  of  the  universe,  is  Christian. 
On  the  other  hand,  all  science,  literature  and  song,  which  makes  you 
believe  in  things  or  afraid  of  things  or  think  that  things  can  be,  unmas- 
tered  by  the  powers  of  life,  is  such  science,  literature,  or  song,  as  in 
such  legends  were  rightly  characterized  as  belonging  to  Hell  and  to  the 
Devil. 

Lit  sometimes  seems  easier  to  trace  the  great  general  laws  of  God's 
government  in  the  passage  of  events  far  from  us,  than  in  those  close 
around  us.  We  see  the  shape  of  those  far-oti'  constellations,  but  we" 
cannot  group  or  set  in  order  that  to  which  our  own  sun  belongs.  It  is 
easier  then,  perhaps,  to  see  how  life  conquered  death,  how  spirit 
conquered  form,  how  the  idea  dethroned  the  image  in  those  days  of  the 
new-born  church,  than  in  these  whose  dust  and  smoke  are  around  us. 
Of  the  victories  of  Life  then,  these  preachers  and  poets  hardly  dared 
speak,  except  in  such  allegories  as  I  have  read  to  you.  Till  the  day 
Christ  died.  Force,  Brute  Force  ruled  the  world,  that  was  the  principle 
of  the  great  Roman  Empire.  It  was  the  organization  of  human  power. 
At  the  head  of  that  organization  Tiberius  sat  upon  his  lonely  throne. 
One  of  the  arms  of  that  organization  lay  across  conquered  Judah.  And 
when  the  moment  came,  the  tool  of  that  organization,  Pontius  Pilate, 
nailed  Jesus  Christ  to  the  cross.     Did  he  die  ?     Can  a  kingdom  like  his 


28  EASTER. 

kingdom  die  ?  The  Idea  with  which  he  had  inoculated  the  world  can- 
not die.  It  is  Life — that  is  its  name.  This  Idea  when  he  died,  seemed  to 
live  only  in  the  faith  and  hope  and  love  of  a  few  weeping  women  and  as 
many  ignorant  men.  Yes.  But  it  did  live  there.  And,  because  it  lived 
there,  it  has  met,  in  a  thousand  battle-fields  ;  nay,  on  a  thousand  crosses, 
with  the  Brute  Force  which  till  now  has  mastered  the  world.  It  is 
like  the  old  battle  of  Hercules  with  the  Hydra.  The  child  of  Eternal 
Life  meets  the  hundred-headed  dragon  of  the  Deeps.  And  it  seems  as 
if,  for  every  dragon  head  that  is  lopped  off,  two  more  terrible  appear. 
Seems  so.  But  in  truth  Life  is  gaining  all  the  while.  Brute  force, 
iSuch  power  as  there  seems  to  be  in  things,  cannot  stand  against  ideas 
which  are  eternal.  And  the  groans  of  the  King  of  Tartarus,  and  of 
Satan,  Prince  of  Evil,  only  represent  under  a.  metaphor  the  successive 
ruins  of  every  bloody  superstition,  of  every  form  of  slavery,  of  every 
cruelty  of  patrician  scorn,  of  every  lust  of  every  Claudius  and  Caligula, 
which  one  after  another  give  way,  as  the  Lord  of  Life,  whom  they  crvxci- 
fied,  begins  his  reign.  Pilatenailed  Jesus  Christ  to  the  cross.  Yes!  And 
which  was  the  stronger  ten  years  after,  Pilate,  or  this  crucified  Saviour.'* 
The  Roman  Emperor  was  master,  and  the  Nazarene  was  crucified  like 
a  felon.  Yes  ;  and  which  was  the  stronger,  when  one  or  two  centuries 
had  rolled  by,  the  Emperor  of  Rome  still  representing  the  brute  force 
of  the  world,  organized  never  so  deftly  and  "vvasely,  or  the  crucified 
Nazarene.?  Or,  if  from  that  day  to  this  day  we  come  down,  what  shall 
we  say  of  all  the  thrones  and  dominions  and  principalities  and  powers, 
which  have  nothing  but  physical  force  to  rely  upon .''  Thrones,  domi- 
nations, principalities,  know^  now  with  a  terrible  certainty  that  mere  force 
of  arms  has  no  power  which  compares  with  that  living  word  of  the  cruci- 
fied Nazarene,  that  bears  with  it  Eternal  Life,  and  directs  the  duty  of  a 
world  of  men  whom  he  can  lead,  but  who  bend  no  knee  to  power. 

Yet  this  lesson  of  Easter,  the  victory  of  Life  over  method,  force,  and 
form  needs  to  be  asserted  and  maintained,  as  much  in  our  time  as  ever. 
We  are  always  falling  back  into  the  conceited  notion  that  we  can  devise 
some  machinery,  which  will  do  instead  of  hearty,  resolute  Life,  of 
brave  and  godly  living.  As  in  the  beginning,  they  ate  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  instead  of  the  tree  of  Life.  For  instance,  there  grows  up  in 
our  crowded  civilization,  a  blighted  growth  of  pauperism,  crime,  drunk- 


THE    VICTORY. 


29 


enness,  parent  and  child  of  pauperism  and  crime,  lust  and  beggary. 
There  is  enough  godly  life  in  the  world,  for  men  to  look  with  horror 
on  such  hell  in  the  midst  of  them.  And,  as  they  ought,  they  devise 
this  poor  law,  that  tax,  such  and  such  restrictions,  such  and  such  prisons, 
and  then  really  expect  that  because  their  machinery  is  so  ingen- 
ious, and  the  science  of  the  thing  so  nicely  adjusted,  the  whole  evil  will 
cease,  that  the  paupers  "will  be  rich,  and  the  licentious  pure,  and  the 
thieves  honest,  and  the  sick  well.  Fools  and  blind  !  All  this  is  like 
the  invention  of  perpetual  motion.  The  water  rises  in  your  new  hy- 
draulic combination,  yes,  it  rises  to  just  the  height  where  you  poured  it 
in,  there  a<d  no  higher.  The  lever  moves  in  your  exquisitely  ordered 
machinery'.  Yes,  it  moves  just  so  far  as  you  push  it,  so  far  and  no  farther. 
To  open  these  blind  eyes,  to  feed  this  starving  crew,  to  heal  these 
scrofulous  beggars,  to  give  back  these  wasted  infants  to  Rachel  who 
is  weeping  for  her  children,  and  will  not  be  comforted,  you  need 
Life  ;  you  need  the  living,  loving  heart  of  living,  loving  men  and  women 
to  quicken  other  hearts  which  can  live  too  and  love  too,  and  in  their  tui'n 
will  quicken  others  which  are  dying  now.  The  better  your  machinery, 
the  simpler  and  the  easier  your  work.  But  you  fall  back  into  heathenism, 
and  into  these  lurid  fights  of  Satan  against  Pluto,  if  you  suppose  that 
any  machinery  of  your  law,  your  taxes  or  your  social  science,  is  going 
to  do  what  only  life  can  do.  It  is  when  Life  and  Love  come  forward 
in  their  triumph,  that  these  gates  of  hell  crumble  and  are  gone.  Lift 
up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates,  and  be  ye  lifted  up,  ye  everlasting  doors, 
that  the  King  of  Glory  may  come  in ! 

We  fall  into  the  same  mistake  if  we  train  our  children  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  things  and  methods,  and  let  the  divine  life  in  them  dwindle  and 
die  away,  the  life  which  ought  to  manage  methods  and  handle  things. 
How  miserable  a  pretender  the  wordy  orator,  who  has  such  store  of 
language,  such  grace  of  gesture,  a  presence  so  attractive,  but  has,  alas, 
nothing  to  say  !  Or  this  writer,  who  sends  to  the  hard-pressed  editor  her 
reams  of  paper  covered  with  lines  of  the  right  length  and  rhymes  of  the 
right  jingle,  the  large  letters  in  their  places  and  the  small  ones  in  theirs, 
but  all  cold  and  dead,  because  there  is  no  spark  of  faith,  or  hope,  or  love. 
As  for  accomplishment,  whether  of  body  or  of  mind,  it  has  always  had 
one  law.     Unless  it  were  under  the  control,  absolute  and  unflinching, 


3©  EASTER. 

of  this  Living  Soul, — God-given  regent  of  mind  and  body, — all  accom- 
plishment has  been  Satan  and  Mephistopheles,  tempter  to  evil  and  ruin. 
In  the  court  of  Tiberius,  in  the  palace  of  Nero,  there  were  accomplished 
women  and  learned  men.  They  did  not  play  the  piano,  but  they  i^layed' 
on  something  as  hard  to  learn  as  the  piano.  They  did  not  calculate 
percentages,  or  arrange  to  make  corners  in  the  food  market.  But  they 
did  use  brains  that  were  quite  as  fine  as  ours  in  computations  that  were 
quite  as  difficult.  And  none  of  this  accomplishment,  nicety,  or  finesse 
saved  them  or  helped  them  to  be  saved.  There  was  no  life  in  these 
palaces  or  courts.  The  Life  had  died  out  of  them,  till  one  day,  a 
prisoner  who  had  pleaded  before  Nero  spoke  a  word  and  another  word 
which  some  servant  of  the  household  heard  :  the  word  of  Life,  which  is 
Power,  and  the  only  Power,  and  in  that  word  they  began  to  live.  Our 
finest  accomplishment  and  our  most  recondite  learning  are  as  worth- 
less as  theirs,  till  they  spring  into  life  at  the  touch  of  the  same  magic 
wand,  and  unless  they  maintain  life  by  the  same  talismanr] 

I  have  spent  a  few  days  past  in  a  region  where  the  historical  memo- 
rials, and  indeed  some  of  the  customs  of  to-day,  carry  us  back  to  that 
time  which  begins  to  seem  mythical,  when  the  Mayflower  ran  into 
the  bay  at  Provincetown,  and  found  rest  from  long  heaving  and  tossing. 
In  her  cabin,  as  she  lay  there,  was  signed  the  first  compact  of  government. 
From  her  anchorage  men  went  forth  on  the  explorations  which  were 
the  beginning  of  an  Empire.  We  linger  fondly,  we  cannot  linger  too 
fondly,  on  the  records  of  their  faith,  and  hope,  and  love.  But  is  there 
man,  woman,  or  child  of  us  who  would  go  back  to  that  life,  to 
live  it  as  they  lived  it  ?  I  say  nothing  of  physical  hardship.  I  do  not  ask 
whether  we  should  like  starvation,  and  cold,  and  loneliness  like  theirs, 
though  I  might  ask  that  fairly.  Would  any  man  or  woman  of  us,  who  have 
seen  the  vision  of  to-day,  and  know  what  to-day  is  achieving,  go  back 
to  the  narrowness  of  their  interests,  to  tiie  pettiness  of  their  thought,  to  the 
range  so  circumscribed  of  their  occupations  and  meditations  ?  Not  one 
of  us  who  has  imagination  enough  to  conceive  what  that  half  life  was, 
or  who  can  to-day  put  any  fair  estimate  on  the  possibility  of  to-day ! 
And  this  is  simply  to  say  that  all  those  visions  of  old  prophecy  are 
working  their  accomplishment  in  every  home.  He  w^ho  sits  upon  the 
white  horse  goes  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  Not  in  the  fashion 
which  John  of  Patmos  thought  of,  very  likely.     But  in  God's  fashions, 


THE    VICTORY. 


31 


a  thousand  times  more  grand,  for  victories  a  thousand  times  more  sure. 
He  overthrows  death,  he  conquers  ignorance  and  sin,  crime  is  more 
hated,  truth  is  more  honored.  Light  overpowers  darkness,  good  con- 
quers evil.  And  if  this  is  true  here,  it  is  only  because  it  is  true  every- 
where. Those  Pilgrim  Fathers  w^ere  not  little  men,  nor  mean,  nor  bad. 
They  did  the  largest  thing  done  in  their  time,  and  it  show^ed  faith  most 
vividly.  But  everywhere,  as  time  passes,  the  eternal  law  is,  that  the 
power  which  works  for  Righteousness  succeeds,  which  is  to  say  that 
God  reigns,  or  that  His  Kingdom  comes. 

[it  is  ours  to  enter  into  the  victory.  It  is  ours  to  refuse  the  cares  of 
smoke  and  dust,  of  the  things  that  perish,  and  to  enter  into  the  reality 
of  Infinite  Life.     Ours  to  live  as  those 

"  Who  live  and  move  and  have  their  being  in  their  God." 

Of  this  daily  miracle  of  what  is  over  what  seems,  the  miracle  of  Easter 
is  the  great  commemoration.  Indeed,  the  word  miracle  does  not  mean 
any  magic  trick,  setting  aside  the  order  of  nature,  it  means  the  assertion 
of  the  spirit  over  the  forms  and  methods  of  dead  matter.  When  the 
Master  of  Life  commands  the  life  of  one  who  trusts  him  to  move  the  para- 
lyzed arm,  the  living  soul  obeys  and  the  dead  limb  does  his  will.  On  the 
morning  of  this  great  miracle  the  living  soul  returned  to  the  body  it  had 
left,  for  the  strength,  the  comfort,  the  new  life  of  these  weeping 
women  and  these  doubting  men.  In  that  return  to  earth,  though  it 
were  only  to  say  farewell  again,  in  those  few  days,  though  they  had  no 
new  lesson  to  teach,  the  Lord  of  Life  quickened  their  lives  that  they 
might  truly  live.  From  that  open  tomb  they  went  forth  on  the  mission 
of  New  Life  to  which  he  sent  them.  The  world  of  dead  force  was  to  be 
a  world  ruled  by  hope  and  faith.  The  world  of  fear  was  to  be  a  world 
of  love.  The  world  of  tyrant  and  slave  was  to  be  a  world  of  brother  and 
brother.  The  world  of  death  was  to  be  a  world  of  life.  Northward, 
southward,  eastward,  westw^ard,  they  went  fortli  to  this  mission  of  life. 
Living,  dying,  teaching,  blessing,  comforting  and  curing,  they  were 
true  to  this  mission.  And  the  symbol  of  Easter  morning  fulfills  itself 
every  hour,  as  the  tears  of  the  world  are  wiped  away,  and  its  sorrows 
healed.     It  was  dead  and  is  alive  again.     It  was  lost  and  is  found. 

"  Lift  higher  your  gates,  ye  princes  of  the  people,  and  be  ye  lifted  up, 
ye  everlasting  doors,  and  the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in.""! 


SOLACE    IN    SORROW. 

BY   AUBREY    DE    VERE. 

Count  each  affliction,  whether  light  or  grave, 
God's  messenger  sent  down  to  thee.     Do  thou 
With  courtesy  receive  him  ;  rise  and  bow, 
And  ere  his  shadow  pass  tiw  threshold,  crave 
Permission  first  his  heavenly  feet  to  lave. 
Then  lay  before  him  all  thou  hast,  allow 
No  cloud  of  passion  to  usurp  thy  brow 
Or  mar  thy  hospitality,  no  wave 
Of  mortal  tumult  to  obliterate 
The  soul's  marmoreal  calmness.     Grief  should  be 
Like  joy  ;  majestic,  equable,  sedate, 
Confirming,  cleansing,  raising,  making  free  ; 
Strong  to  consume  small  troubles,  to  commend 
Great  thoughts,  grave  thoughts,  thoughts  lasting 
to  the  end. 


LIFE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES, 


"God  hath  given  unto  us  Eternal  Life,  and  this  Life  is  in  his  Son." —  I.  JOHN  V,  ii. 

Ask  any  simple  Christian  to  tell  you,  in  brief,  the  story  of  Christ's 
Life;  ask  a  child,  or  a  savage  who  cannot  read.  He  will  say:  "The 
Jews  hated  him.  Pilate  tried  to  kill  him.  But  he  still  lives,  and  will 
live  forever."     This  is  a  sufficient  abridgment  of  the  gospel. 

Such  an  abridgment  has  its  value,  because  w^hen  you  thus  come 
down  to  the  Rock, — as  Jesus  himself  would  say, — when  you  state  the 
real  foundation  of  the  Christian  religion, — you  find  it  is  Life.  The 
shrewdness  of  the  shifty  Jew  and  the  force  of  the  organizing  and  brutal 
Roman  take  their  fit  rank  of  subordination.  The  Christian  religion 
asserts  itself  again  in  Christ's  own  words,  the  motto  of  this  Church  : — 

"  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  Life^  and  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly." 

Easter  Sunday  becomes  the  Sunday  of  Sundays,  because  it  renews 
this  statement,  that  Life  is  the  one  essential.  In  the  face  of  ritual,  of 
any  formality  or  other  physical  corruption  of  religion,  it  asserts  that 
Life  is  the  essential.  And,  in  the  face  of  dogma,  enforced  creed, — log- 
ical plan  of  salvation  wrought  out  by  intellectual  process, — it  asserts 
that  Life  is  the  essential.  It  may  serve  us,  if  we  review  the  gospel  stories 
and  find  how  this  statement  is  the  centre  of  what  they  say. 

Jesus  is  so  determined  to  enliven  men  that  it  seems,  at  the  beginning, 
as  if  he  could  not  believe  that  they  would  cling  to  their  grave-clothes  so 
desperately.  His  encounters  with  rabbinical  learning  and  with  decorous 
establishments,  of  which  the  whole  efibrt  was  to  conform  to  what  is 
written, — encounters  all  full  of  his  protest  against  what  is  superficial  or 
merely  transitorv, — are,  in  fact,  like  the  dash  of  the  eternal  sea  upon 

(33) 


34  EASTKR. 

the  rock.  The  looker-on  thinks  the  sea  is  repulsed,  and  that  it  is  the  clift* 
which  triumphs.  It  is  only  after  a  century  that  you  see  that  the  cliff  has 
been  ground  away,  and  that  the  eternal  sea  is  still  beating  upon  other 
ledges  which  time  has  disclosed.  There  is  no  better  illustration  of  the 
absurdities  of  literalism — of  the  follies  of  holding  by  a  code  which  is 
antiquated,  of  the  vanity  of  know^ledge  as  distinguished  from  wisdom — 
than  this  illustration,  given  by  the  conflict  between  the  living  Jesus — 
life-giving — and  these  mummies,  the  literalist  rabbin,  the  law-abiding 
Pharisees  of  his  time. 

But  he  has  to  meet,  not  the  learning  of  the  time  only,  but  the  brute 
force  of  the  time  as  well, — a  carpenter's  son  on  one  side,  and  the  Em- 
peror Tiberius  and  the  power  of  the  Roman  Empire  on  the  other. 
John's  disciples,  crazy  with  indignation,  come  storming  around  him  in 
Galilee  to  make  him  King  of  the  Jews.  That  is  enough  to  compromise 
him.  The  garrison  at  Tiberias  sends  down  word  to  the  other  garrisons 
that  there  is  another  rising  and  another  king.  Pilate  has  heard  of  him 
before  the  gray  of  that  morning,  when  the  chief  priests  bring  him  be- 
fore his  judgment.  The  wit  and  craft  of  Asia  unite  with  the  force  of 
arms  of  Europe  to  trample  out  this  spark  of  the  Light  Divine.  "Did 
he  say  'more  life'.''  We  nail  him  to  the  cross."  That  is  what  Learn- 
ing says,  that  is  what  the  Right  Arm  of  Powei'  says  when  you  talk  of 
*'Life — more  abundantly." 

And  after  the  Learning  of  Asia  and  the  Force  of  Europe  have  done 
their  worst,  here  are  these  women,  testifying  that  the  grave  cannot  hold 
him.  "And,  before  we  know^  it,  here  are  these  followers  of  his, 
preaching  in  the  temple  courts,  just  as  he  did — pestilent  fellow  ! — at  the 
Passover.     Is  there  no  end  to  this  thing.''     Will  it  never  die.''" 

No.  That  is  just  what  it  will  not  do.  It  will  not  die.  It  is  all 
through  Jerusalem.  They  have  caught  the  flavor  of  it  at  Damascus. 
"Why,  these  Samaritans — cursed  heathen  ! — have  heard  of  it  at  Neap- 
olis.  Down  in  Africa,  that  treasurer  has  carried  it,  whom  we  had 
here  with  the  offerings  from  y^thiopia  ;  and  in  Antioch,  they  say,  half 
the  synagogues  are  mad  with  it.  Do  you  remember  that  Saul — quick- 
witted, eager  fellow — at  Gamaliel's  school  ?  He  has  gone  into  this  new 
way.  He  is  all  over  Greece  proclaiming  it,"  Such  are  the  ejaculations 
of  the  next  twenty  years.     Clearly  enough,  this  thing  does  not  die  easily. 


I.IFE    AND    ITS    ENEMIES.  35 

*' Were  they  right,  who  said  we  did  not  kill  him  on  Calvary?"  Yet 
the  history  of  "  the  New  Way,"  as  they  called  it,  is  always  on  the  same 
lines  as  the  history  of  him  who  led  the  way.  Always  the  wit  of  man  is 
trying  to  out-mancpuvre  it,  or  the  force  of  man  trying  to  crush  out  its  Life. 
There  was  never  an  enemy  to  the  Life  more  dangerous  than  that  wordy 
Learning  of  those  first  centuries.  All  their  cumbrous  Egyptian  triad-sys- 
tem, three  gods  who  are  one  God,  has  to  be  grafted  into  it.  No  religion 
can  meet  the  fashion  of  Alexandria,  can  meet  the  popular  taste,  which 
has  not  its  trinity.  So  the  poor  Christian  Church,  which  started  as 
absolute  religion,  has  to  take  on  that  bit  of  philosophical  costume.  Then 
comes  in  the  Persian  system  of  two  gods,  a  good  god  and  a  bad  god  ; 
and  the  philosophers  and  creed-makers  have  to  adapt  the  poor  simple 
faith  to  these  demands.  "Freedom  of  will  and  foreordination,  what  do 
you  say  to  them  ?  "  This  is  the  cry  of  Augustine  and  the  metaphysicians. 
And  so  another  set  of  chains  have  to  be  riveted  there.  Poor,  simple 
"Way  of  God,"  which  began  with  "love  God,  love  man,  and  live  for 
heaven," — one  does. not  w^onder  if  its  victories  stopped,  when  it  was 
handicapped  in  the  race  by  such  dead  weights  us  these.  All  this  is  to 
make  the  wisdom  of  men  take  the  place  of  the  abundant  Life,  which  is, 
indeed,  the  very  Life  of  God.  Nor  has  "the  Life  made  manifest" 
any  harder  experience  through  the  ages  than  in  the  midst  of  those  hope- 
less controversies.  While '  men  are  pushing  their  words  hither  and 
thither,  from  this  square  to  that,  trying  to  make  this  sUitement  fit  with 
that,  and  that  with  another — changing  the  order  to  meet  this  or  that 
inconsistency,  and,  after  all,  finding  that  the  fatal  block  will  not  come 
true  in  the  arrangement, — "The  Life"  is  no  longer  manifested.  In 
that  puzzle,  a  new  paralysis  steals  over  the  race  which  had  begun  to 
live. 

And,  at  the  same  time,  the  "Christian  Way"  was  repeating  the 
Master's  sorrows  on  the  other  side.  The  Master  had  to  meet  the  craft 
ofCaiaphas  and  his  Pharisees.  He  had  to  meet  as  well  the  force  of 
Pilate  and  his  legions.  The  Life  is  always  suffering  between  bodily 
passion  and  mcnt;d  subtletj'.  While  the  Church  had  its  very  life-blood 
sucked  out  of  it  by  those  vampires  of  dogmatics,  it  was,  witliout  know- 
ing it,  dying  out  in  the  embrace  of  that  very  Roman  Empire  whose 
anger  it  met  in  the  beginning.  In  the  long  run,  the  friendship  of  the 
Emperor  Constantine  has  proved  a  heavier  weight  to  it  than  the  hatred 


36.  EASTER. 

orf"  Nero  and  Diocletian.  You  cannot  think  of  a  worse  gift  for  this 
'*Way  of  Life,"  or  for  its  loyal  professors,  than  to  receive  it  at  court,  to 
clothe  them  in  the  silk  and  purple  and  fine  linen  of  Constantinople,  to 
feed  them  with  its  luxuries,  and  to  give  to  them  its  pati'onage.  Look  in 
those  centuries  for  the  "Life  made  manifest,"  and  you  have  to  search 
for  a  jewel  in  a  dung-heap.  And  one  can  w^ell  imagine  the  Enemy  of 
Souls  of  their  mythology  chuckling  with  Satanic  glee  when  he  sees  "the 
Life,"  which  Pilate  could  not  crucify  and  Caiaphas  could  not  extinguish, 
stifled  at  the  court  of  Constantine  or  Justinian,  under  the  mitres,  the 
flounces,  and  the  embroidery  of  an  archbishop's  uniform. 

Dead,  embalmed,  and  buried  indeed  is  your  Manifested  Life  in  the 
history  of  some  centuries, — with  all  the  show  of  an  Egyptian  mummy 
or  a  cathedral  tomb,  and  with  as  little  life  ;  with  etiquette  and  ritual, 
w^ith  gorgeous  pomp  and  lines  of  hierarchical  sendee  which  only  the 
court  of  the  lower  empire  could  have  taught,  and  with  as  much  heart 
and  soul  as  that  court  knew — and  as  little.  • 

From  such  death  and  burial  the  resurrection  comes  in  some  valley  of  the 
Alps,  where  the  mountaineers  read  the  simple  gospel  of  Him  who  is  the 
Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life.  They  reject  all  priests  and  bishops  and 
kings.  They  accept  no  sacraments  nor  other  ordinances  than  they  find 
his  instruction  for. 

The  resurrection  comes  when  Peter  Waldo,  in  Lyons, — under  the 
shadow  of  a  gray  cathedral,  in  the  government  of  a  political  archbishop, 
and  a  circle  of  political  priests, — creates  the  people's  Bible,  copies  the 
Gospels,  the  "Noble  Lesson,"  as  he  calls  it.  for  men  to  read  in  their 
own  tongue. 

It  comes  in  Toulouse,  and  in  all  that  lovely  Southern  France, — where, 
with  new  refinement  in  life,  with  a  new  beginning  of  civilization,  relig- 
ion also  assumes  a  gentler  and  simpler  form,  rejects  of  course  the  poli- 
tics of  Rome  and  the  materialism  of  her  ritual, — to  be  crushed  out,  of 
course,  in  blood  and  fire  and  death,  by  the  cruelty  of  Dominic  .and  of 
Pope  "Innocent." 

The  resurrection  comes  one  day  when  Martin  Luther,  climbing  on 
his  knees  the  steps  of  the  Roman  stairway,  where  tradition  tells  him  that 
such  climbing  shall  buy  off"  some  years  from  purgatory,  sees  the  lie  and 
denounces   it.     He  sees  that  Life  knows  nothing  of  such  formalism. 


LIFE    AND    ITS    ENEMIES.  37 

"  Thou  shalt  be  justified  by  faith^^''  by  the  inward  certainty  of  the  help 
of  God. 

The  Christian  Life  rose  from  the  dead  in  that  uprising  of  the  nations 
which  we  call  The  Reformation.  And  then,  too,  in  the  centuries  which 
follow,  the  same  history  repeats  itself  again.  The  Enemy  of  Souls,  you 
might  say,  moves  out  his  heavy  castle  on  the  board,  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  shifty  bishop,  on  the  other,  against  this  poor  little  pawn,  who  is 
not  yet  queen  of  the  world.  For  a  generation,  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
new  life,  the  men  and  women  of  Christ's  way  did  open  blind  eyes  and 
deaf  ears :  they  made  the  lame  to  walk,  and  what  had  been  dead  to  live. 
They  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  righteousness,  obtained  promises, 
stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  quenched  the  violence  of  fire,  waxed  val- 
iant in  fight,  and  seemed  to  promise  a  new  kingdom.  No  Enemy  of 
Souls  could  have  routed  such  an  army  of  those  who  had  found  out  what 
the  Law  of  Life  was,  if  he  had  met  them  in  square  battle.  But,  when 
they  begin  to  teach  each  other  how  it  is,  and  why,  then  the  temptation 
comes.  "  What  was  God  doing  before  he  made  the  world .''"  "  What 
did  God  foreordain,  and  what  came  of  his  foreordination.?"  "How 
does  God's  justice  in  this  business  fit  in  with  his  mercy.'"'  You  know 
that  string  of  dreary  questions  and  their  hopleless  answers.  The  older 
among  you  remember  the  traces  of  them  in  your  catechisms.  You 
know  how  the  new  Life  ebbs  away  and  dies  when  all  this  splitting  of 
hairs  and  instructing  the  Almighty  come  in.  The  power  and  miracle 
of  the  Life  had  been  promised  to  babes,  and  not  to  the  pioident  or  the 
wise.  The  power  had  come,  and  the  miracles  had  been  wrought,  by 
those  whom  the  world  called  foolish, — by  those  who  were  humble. 
And  the  moment  when  it  seemed  necessary  to  call  on  the  universities  of 
Europe  to  explain  Christianity,  or  those  learned  in  language  or  in  logic 
to  teach  it, — in  that  moment  it  proved  that  the  eagle  had  lost  the  bal- 
ance of  his  wings,  and  could  not  fly  ;  the  virgin  had  lost  her  chastity : 
the  lion  had  lost  his  teeth  and  his  claws :  the  Lite  was  buried  again  be- 
neath the  weight  of  logic  and  learning. 

And  the  other  lesson  repeats  itself  as  well.  Your  new  Life  in  the 
freshness  of  its  new  birth,  in  the  loveliness  of  this  new  simplicity, — 

"  When  unadorned,  adorned  the  most," — 
is  tempted,  just  as  she  was  tempted  before,  into  the  alliance  of  princes  and 


337278 


38  F.ASTER. 

potentates. .  It  is  just  the  old  story  over  again.  It  is  the  old,  false  victory  of 
the  lying  romances, — because  she  is  simple.  Your  lovely  maiden  from  the 
hillside,  who  is  lovely  precisely  because  she  does  not  know^  the  follies  of 
courts,  their  etiquettes  and  frauds, — is  seen  by  the  king  as  he  is  hunting 
w^ith  his  train.  And  he  falls  in  love  w^ith  her.  Of  course  he  falls  in  love 
with  her.  He  has  never  seen  such  loveliness  at  court  as  that  loveliness. 
Nay,  he  never  knew  such  power  as  that  simple  power.  Nay,  he  never 
heard  such  wisdom  as  falls  from  those  lips  untaught.  And  so  he  marries 
her  and  takes  her  to  his  palace.  And  there  the  romande  always  ends,  in  the 
chiming  of  bells,  in  the  blaze  of  bonfires,  and  in  the  brilliancy  of  illumi- 
nation. Yes,  there  the  romance  has  to  end.  For  from  that  moment 
the  poor  girl's  loveliness  declines,  and  her  power  ebbs,  and  her  simple 
wisdom  stammers.  She  is  lost  in  these  intrigues  of  courts,  and  in  the 
damned  falsitv  of  their  etiquettes.  She  cannot  lift  them  by  her  own 
arm,  and  what  happens  is  that  they  pull  her  down  to  their  level.  This 
is  just  what  happens  to  your  Christian  Church, — to  your  simple  New 
Life  just  born  again,  so  lovely,  so  free,  so  pure,  and  so  sweet, — ^when 
the  kings  of  the  earth  come  and  make  their  court  to  her.  Harry  VIII. 
in  England,  Henry  IV.  in  France,  the  Elector  Frederick,  or  King  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus,  are  only  so  many  passionate  and  selfish  princes,  just 
for  a  moment  bewitched  by  the  eternal  charm  of  purity  and  freedom, 
but  no  more  able  than  Nicodemus  was,  to  be  born  again  into  like  purity 
and  like  freedom.  You  know  w'hat  comes  of  sucli  alliances,  you  know 
what  must  come  of  th'em.  Farewell  to  your  hope  there  of  the  coining 
kingdom  !  No  more  hosannas  for  the  Prince  of  Peace  !  Farewell  to 
your  paeans  of  triumph  in  the  libert}'  with  which  Christ  makes  you  free  ! 
Farewell  to  your  glad  hymns,  to  the  spirit  of  Life  in  Christ  Jesus ! 
This  is  not  life  Which  stammers  out  its  prayers  in  words  which  a  king 
directs.  No  :  there  is  no  such  death  as  in  the  slavery  of  an  exacted 
form. 

Whoever  toils,  blind  with  dust  and  well-nigh  hopeless,  in  the  annals 
of  the  last  century  and  the  centvny  before,  and  asks  w^hat  has  become  of 
'•  The  Life,  once  manifest."  has  his  answer  when  he  finds  how  the  arms 
of  temporal  power  embraced  the  simple  Bride  of  Christ,  as  the  loving 
old  phrase  called  the  Church.  And  again  he  finds  it,  when  he  reads 
how   the  doct(.rs  of  the    imiversities  bedrugged  her    and  puzzled  her. 


LIFE    AND    ITS    ENEMIES.  39 

And,  whenever  the  Life  appears,  it  is  as  you  see  a  timid  snowdrop 
peeping  up  amid  the  frozen  ground,  or  as  you  hear  the  song  of  a  fright- 
ened bluebird  in  the  midst  of  the  gales  of  March.  The  Life  is  in  the 
simple  song  of  the  Moravian  brethren.  It  is  as  colliers  and  smiths  and 
badgers  and  ditchers  meet  together  at  a  cross-road,  to  listen  to  Wesley. 
It  is  as  the  hunted  peasants  of  the  Cevennes  defy  the  trained  soldiers  of 
Louis.  Always  the  story  is  the  same.  You  sought  your  Lord  in  a 
tomb,  and  you  found  him  in  a  garden.  Man  had  hew^n  the  tomb. 
Man  had  squared  the  stones.  Man  had  rolled  the  rock  to  the  door. 
*'But  the  tomb  will  not  hold  him."  He  stands  under  the  heaven  of 
God  with  rising  sun  of  morning  revealing  to  you  what  you  do  not 
make  out  through  your  tears.  It  is  only  when  you  tear  off  the  cere- 
ments of  your  metaphysics  and  logic,  and  swear  to  God  that  you  will 
seek  only  the  Life,  central  and  beneath  all,  that  you  find  your  Christian 
religion  as  pure  and  sweet  and  simple  as  it  alwavswas.  It  is  only  when 
you  tear  off  the  ceremonies, — which  for  their  convenience  kings  and 
priests  have  instituted, — and  throw  them  after  the  grave-clothes,  to  be 
fretted  by  moth,  and  to  find  their  own  place  in  the  ashes,  that  your  faith 
becomes  what  it  was  in  the  beginning. 

The  Life  was  manifested.  We  have  seen  it.  We  have  handled  it 
with  our  hands.  He  has  made  clear  to  us  the  eternal  Life — as  it  was 
with  the  Father. 

It  is  easy  to  say  this  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  is,  thank 
God,  the  simplest  commonplace  to  say  it.  If  I  spoke  of  Christians 
who  speak  the  English  language,  I  might  safely  say  that,  from  the  right 
wing  to  the  left,  every  communion  of  Christians  would  say  to-day  that 
"Christianity  is  a  Life,  not  a  creed  or  a  form."  I  could  cite  words  to 
that  effect  from  leading  writers  of  every  communion,  probably  even  in 
the  Catholic  Church,  certainly  in  all  others.  But,  one  hundred  years 
ago,  to  say  that  would  be  heresy.  I  believe  we  owe  that  verbal  state- 
ment, those  particular  words,  to  James  Martineau,  that  great  religious 
philosopher,  whose  life  and  work  alone  would  make  it  an  honor  to  any 
man  to  be  called  an  Englishman.  But  the  calm  presentation  of  the  truth 
in  language  unadorned  and  unepigrammatic,  language  simple  to  bald- 
ness, the  statement  made  so  definite  and  clear  that  men  had  to  accept  it, 
when  they  hated  to, — this  proclamation  was  the  work  of  Channing,  the 


40  EASTER. 

hero  of  our  time,  whose  birth  next  week  is  to  celebrate.  Mr.  Agassiz 
says  of  physical  discovery,  that  it  always  passes  through  three  stages  of 
comment : — 

1 .  Men  say  it  contradicts  the  Bible. 

2.  They  say  they  discovered  it  themselves. 

3.  They  say  everybody  always  believed  it  everywhere. 
Channing's  calm  enunciation  of  simple  Christianity — that  it  meant 

"love  God,  love  man,  and  live  forever,"  that  that  is  the  whole  of  it — 
has  passed  and  is  passing  through  just  those  phases,  i.  Men  said,  it 
was  not  in  the  Bible.  2.  Now  they  all  say  they  discovered  it  them- 
selves, and — that  it  is  commonplace.  Let  us  thank  God  for  that.  The 
great  victory  will  come  when  all  men  everywhere  shall  say  that  they 
always  believed  it  and  always  will ;  that  there  is  no  intellectual  dogma 
in  the  Life  of  Christ ;  that  there  is  no  form  of  machinery  or  method 
requisite  to  it ;  that  it  is  simply  Life, — the  Life  of  God  in  the  affairs  of 
man. 

Less  and  less  shall  men  seek  that  life  in  their  plans  of  salvation,  in 
ingenious  tangles  of  their  dialectics. 

Less  and  less  shall  they  seek  it  in  camp  or  court,  by  ordered  proces- 
sional or  sacrifice. 

"Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead?"  These  are  only  the 
blocks  which  he  pushed  by.     They  are  the  bandages  that  tied  him. 

Pardon  the  blinded  believer,  if  for  a  moment  he  do  not  know  the 
Master  whom  he  thought  dead,  and  who  is  alive.  There  needs  but  one 
word  of  living  love,  and  Mary  know^s  him.  There  needs  but  a  living 
Church, — ready  to  speak  in  his  loving  spirit, — and  the  world  knows  and 
believes. 

Its  religion  is  not  a  creed  :  it  is  not  a  form.  It  is  the  Life  of  God  in 
the  soul  of  man. 


THE  NEW  BIRTH. 


BY  JONES    VERY. 


'Tis  a  new  life ;  —  thoughts  move  not  as  they  did, 

With  slow,  uncertain  steps,  across  my  mind ; 

In  thronging  haste  fast  pressing  on,  they  bid 

The  portals  open  to  the  viewless  wind, 

That  comes  not  save  when  in  the  dust  is  laid 

The  crown  of  pride,  —  that  gilds  each  mortal  brow, 

And  from  before  man's  vision  melting  fade 

The  heavens  and  earth  ;  —  their  walls  are  falling  now. 

Fast  crowding  on,  each  thought  asks  utterance  strong ; 

Storm-lifted  waves  swift  rushing  to  the  shore, 

On  from  the  sea  they  send  their  shouts  along. 

Back  through  the  cave-worn  rocks  their  thunders  roar ; 

And  I,  a  child  of  God  by  Christ  made  free, 

Start  from  death's  slumbers  to  Eternity. 


INCREASE  OF  LIFE, 


"  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." — JOHN  xiv,  19. 

To  Jesus  Christ,  the  unseen  world  and  the  world  which  is  seen  are 
one  world  and  the  same.  We  talk  of  "the  other  world,"  "the  future 
world,"  "the  world  above":  he  does  not  speak  so.  He  speaks  of 
heaven  as  if  it  were  now  and  here,  or  might  be ;  and,  when  they  are 
confused  with  what  he  says,  it  is  often  because  they  see  double  where  he 
sees  singly.  Nay  :  when  he  appears  to  be  confused  by  what  they  say, 
— as  sometimes  happens, — the  best  account  we  can  give  is  that  they  are 
talking  of  this  visible  ■world  only,  while  he  talks  at  once  of  the  visible 
and  invisible.  There  are  a  hundred  texts  which  show  his  feeling, — 
"Lo  !  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  "  It  is 
my  Father  who  doeth  these  works  at  which  you  wonder.  You  do  not 
see  him;  but,  all  the  same,  he  is  here."  "Father,  I  know  that  thou 
hearest  me  always.  I  would  not  have  spoken  aloud  but  for  the  help  of 
these  who  are  standing  by."  And,  when  he  expresses  his  trouble  be- 
cause language  and  metaphor  fail  him  as  they  do,  it  is  in  this  very 
difficult}'.  Language,  having  been  made  by  people  who  rely  on  their 
senses,  to  answer  the  purposes  of  the  visible  and  tangible  world,  breaks 
down,  and  breaks  down  very  badly,  when  it  is  applied  to  the  range, 
vastly  wider,  of  that  unseen  world,  which  permeates  this  world,  and 
in  w^hich  this  world  floats  as  a  straw  floats  in  the  ocean. 

Many  of  you  remember  our  dear  friend  Starr  King's  celebrated  dis- 
course on  "  Substance  and  Shadow."  He  was  at  work  there  to  remove 
exactly  this  difficulty  which  the  Master  tried  to  remove,  nor  is  there 
work  more  essential  for  the  Master's  apostle.  While  we  sat  and  list- 
ened to  Mr.  King,  we  felt  and  knew  what  Jesus  teaches.  The  things 
which  endure  are  faith  and  hope  and  love.  Life  is  the  substance,  the 
hard-pan  foundation,  from  which  these  forms  and  things  around  us  are 

(42) 


INCREASE    OK    LIFE.  43 

born.  We  cannot  see  life,  nor  handle  it  nor  smell  it  nor  hear  it  nor 
taste  it.  But  life  is  ;  and  without  it  nothing  can  even  appear  to  be.  In 
the  beginning  is  the  Word.  Mr.  King  made  us  wonder  that  we  had 
cared  so  much  for  this  or  that  little  thing,  which  is  but  a  bubble  tossed 
on  the  eternal  ocean.  For  the  moment,  you  said  you  would  not  be  so 
fooled  again.  You  would  take  fast  hold  on  love,  which  you  found  to 
be  a  reality.  You  would  live  in  hope,  or  in  the  infinite  world,  seeing 
that  is  the  real  world.  You  would  trust  wholly  in  God,  seeing  all  being 
is  from  him  ;  and  these  little  things  that  perish  in  the  using  should  fall 
into  their  own  inferior  place  in  your  regard  or  thought  or  action. 
While  that  mood  lasted,  you  caught  the  true  Christian  notion  of  life. 
There  are  not  two  lives, — a  life  of  heaven  there  and  a  life  of  eartli 
here.-  These  two  lives  are  one  life.  As  the  Lord's  Prayer  says,  '•  God's 
will  is  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven."  This  opens  out  the  meaning 
of  the  more  figurative  phrase,  "  The  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand." 

The  knowledge,  that  life  is  indeed  larger  than  the  little  world  we  see, 
grows  upon  us  in  a  thousand  ways.  The  charm,  always  new,  of 
watching  a  baby's  life,  rests  in  our  interest  in  the  steps  of  such  growth. 
The  little  thing  first  learns  its  own  hands,  that  they  are  its  own.  A 
little  more,  and  it  knows  its  mother's  face,  and  that  she  also  is  its  own. 
By  and  by,  its  world  enlarges ;  and  at  last  it  knows  the  whole  nurseiy, 
which  seems  a  universe  indeed,  while  it  is  a  novelty,  so  much  larger 
than  the  petty  world  the  child  was  in  before. 

Such  steps  as  these  are  really  enlarging  our  life  all  the  time  afterward, 
though  we  do  not  perhaps  note  them  with  quite  such  eager  curiosity. 
But  it  is  just  such  a  step,  when  the  school-boy,  who  but  yesterday  was 
first  in  his  class  and  could  talk  of  nothing  but  the  ambitions  of  the 
school-room,  finds  himself  the  smallest  boy  in  a  great  mercantile  house, 
where  his  existence  is  hardly  suspected  and  nobody  knows  his  name. 
He  learns,  by  hard  rubs  perhaps,  that  the  world  is  much  larger  than 
he  thought.  Yet  his  chief,  the  very  "grand  Cyrus"  of  them  all,  the 
master  of  masters,  has  to  learn  the  same  lesson.  He  takes  his  holiday 
on  some  favorable  year,  he  crosses  the  ocean,  he  has  or  thinks  he  has 
some  business  with  one  of  the  merchant  lords  of  London  or  of  Paris  ; 
and,  when  the  interview  has  been  arranged,  after  some  negotiation,  he 
finds  that  he  was  never  heard  of  before,  that  now  his  name  is  forgotten, 


44  EASTER. 

that  there  are  perhaps  a  hundred  others  waiting  for  their  turn,  and  that 
he,  the  first  tradesman  in  his  own  county,  may  be  yet  a  very  small 
person  in  the  larger  world.  So  in  the  world  of  politics,  in  the  world 
of  literature,  in  the  ambitions  of  fashion  and  society,  precisely  because 
we  are  infinite  beings, — beings  whose  nature  cannot  be  limited, — we 
find  all  the  time  that  there  is  far  more  outside  of  us  in  life  than  we 
have  ever  yet  attained  to.  We  cannot  often  enough  say  that  life  gives  us 
more,  nature  gives  us  more,  the  more  we  take.  Yes,  and  the  more 
life  gives  or  nature  gives,  the  more  they  offer. 

The  robin  in  its  nest  looks  into  a  world  made  up  of  a  few  leaves  and 
boughs  around.  As  the  feathers  of  its  wings  grow,  it  flutters  a  little 
from  the  branch,  and  is  astonished  to  find  that  the  orchard  is  so  large. 
The  bird  of  passage,  when  the  instinct  bred  by  the  season  carries  it  far 
north  or  far  south,  learns  that  the  covert  of  a  few  trees,  orchard  or 
grove,  was  nothing  to  this  larger  world.  Man,  of  all  animals,  compasses 
the  whole  globe ;  and  then  man,  in  turn,  studies  the  universe  outside  of 
it,  and  finds  that  this  world  is  a  speck,  and  only  a  speck,  in  that  uni- 
verse of  whose  laws  he  finds  out  more  and  more  every  day,  for  they  are 
not  beyond  the  ken  of  a  child  of  God. 

The  village  boy  growing  to  manhood  finds  that  he  is  a  member  of  the 
State  as  well  as  of  the  village.  He  does  not  lose  his  interest  in  the  base- 
ball club  or  the  singing-class,  because  he  has  gained  an  interest  in  the 
politics  of  the  State,  or  is  at  work  for  the  State  Fair,  or  has  been  chosen 
to  the  Legislature.  Then  a  great  crisis  comes  upon  him,  and  his  life 
enlarges  again.  Sumter  is  fired  on,  and  he  takes  a  commission  from 
the  President,  and  enters  the  service  of  the  nation.  Still,  he  belongs  to 
the  village,  and  to  the  State.  His  life  as  a  citizen  of  the  State  does  not 
cease  because  he  is  an  officer  of  the  nation.  Such  is  the  illustration  of 
the  common  life, — life  here  and  life  in  heaven, — which  Jesus  Christ  is 
always  trying  to  make  us  comprehend,  even  by  symbols  which  he  owns 
are  inadequate.  You  do  live  in  Chester  Square  or  in  Union  Park  ;  but 
you  also  live  in  Massachusetts,  and  have  duties  and  pleasures  which 
to  that  life  belong.  More  than  this,  you  are  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  and  as  such  have  other  duties  and  relations.  Nay  :  even  if  you 
do  not  cross  oceans  or  continents,  you  are  also  a  citizen  of  the  world, 
and  as  such  have  a  life  yet  larger.  More  than  this,  says  the  Saviour  of 
men,  you  live  in  heaven,  and  have  relations,  pleasures,  and  duties,  as  a 


INCREASE    OF    LIFE.  45 

child  of  God,  as  a  child  of  heaven.  They  are  not  apart  from  to-day's 
duties  or  pleasures.  Rather  they  are  all  knit  in  with  them.  Nor  are 
they  the  life  of  a  to-morrow,  unattainable  until  to-day  is  done  with. 
They  are  the  life  of  to-day,  all  mixed  in  with  life  which  is  visible  and 
tangible.  A  woman's  new  life — when  her  first  child  is  in  her  arms, 
wholly  dependent  on  her — is,  or  may  be,  simply  the  life  of  a  minister- 
ing angel.  She  does  not  care  for  herself,  save  as  she  cares  for  the 
child  which  depends  on  her.  Her  question  is  not,  "  Is  the  room  too  hot 
for  me?"  but,  "Is  it  too  hot  for  him  ?"  It  is  not,  "  What  will  entertain 
me?"  but,  "What  will  entertain  him?"  That  measure  of  love  is  no 
more  perfect  in  the  ministry  of  an  angel  than  it  is  in  the  ministry  of  any 
mother  who  surrenders  herself  to  her  child.  So  of  the  loyal,  absorbed 
faith  of  a  soldier  going  into  battle.  It  is  not,  "Shall  I  best  shelter 
myself  here?"  but,  "How  shall  I  best  protect  the  men?"  It  is  not, 
"Shall  I  get  through  easiest  thus?"  but,  "How  shall  I  best  serve  the 
cause  ? "  No  angel  or  archangel  in  any  hierarchy  of  God  can  surpass 
that  loyalty  to  a  cause.  And  such  faith  as  that,  where  it  exists,  mani- 
fests the  law,  the  purpose,  the  system  of  God's  own  heaven.  Such  love 
as  that  mother's,  such  faith  as  that  soldier's,  are  not  to  be  spoken  of  as 
like  the  heavenly  qualities :  they  are  the  heavenly  qualities.  What 
Jesus  is  trying  to  make  us  see  is  that  heaven  thus  has  its  part  and  place 
in  the  world  of  time,  and  may  wholly  master  it,  if  we  will.  To  bor- 
row a  striking  figure  which  I  once  heard  Dr.  Bush  employ,  the  earth  is 
as  full  of  heaven  as  a  sponge  is  full  of  water.  Every  pore  is  saturated 
and  crowded  with  it.  And  the  true  child  of  God,  who  knows  his  own 
dignity,  is  not  forever  distinguishing  between  the  sponge  and  what  it 
holds,  between  things  of  time  and  things  of  eternity.  How  can  he  dis- 
criminate ?  Both  are  God's  work.  Both  are  in  God's  order.  He  can 
sweep  a  floor  to  God's  glory  as  well  as  sing  a  psalm  to  his  glory.  As  the 
true  citizen  does  his  duty,  and  does  it  of  course  and  without  question, 
never  stopping  to  say,  I  do  this  as  a  Charlestown  man,  or  I  ilo  tliis  as  a 
Massachusetts  man,  or  I  do  this  as  an  American,  or  this  as  a  citizen  of 
the  world,  but  knows  and  feels  that  the  one  relation  belongs  to  the 
other,  reinforces  it,  and  gains  strength  from  it,  just  so  the  child  of  God 
lives  his  earthly  life  and  his  heavenly  life  at  once  and  together.  He 
does  not  define,  nor  dissect,  nor  analyze.  There  is  no  separation  nor 
distinction.     He  speaks  at  once  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels. 


46  EASTER. 

He  does  the  deed  at  once  of  earth  and  of  heaven.  He  does  his  own  will, 
— yes,  and  he  does  his  Father's  will  in  the  same  act.  For  he  has  so 
wrought  out  the  divinity  of  his  own  nature  that  his  life  is  hid  in  God's 
life.  Of  which  union  the  perfect  statement  was  made,  when  Jesus  said, 
"I  and  my  Father  are  one."  For  which  also  he  prayed  for  us,  when 
we  prayed  that  we  might  be  one,  as  they  two  are  one. 

Careless  people  sometimes  express  surprise  \vhen  they  find  the  same 
man  exhibiting  what  they  call  the  most  opposite  characters,  that  he  is 
at  once  so  practical  and  so  ideal.  Mr.  Emerson,  for  instance,  idealist  of 
the  idealists,  teaches  the  most  obdurate  common-sense  in  the  homeliest 
Saxon  dialect.  So  Professor  Peirce,  one  who  could  weigh  one  comet 
against  another  in  his  scales,  who  could  count  the  oscillations  of  the 
rays  of  the  Pleiades  and  untangle  the  cords  of  the  attractions  of  Orion, 
was,  through  and  through,  an  idealist,  never  so  much  at  home  as  when 
he  spoke  of  the  foundations  of  ethics,  and  in  most  weighty  phrase,  ren- 
dered homage  to  the  truth.  It  is  only  careless  people  who  are  so  sur- 
prised. Earth  being  all  full  of  heaven,  the  surprising  thing  would  be 
if  this  were  not  so.  The  man  really  practical  will  be  thoroughly  ideal. 
The  child  of  God  truly  heavenly  will  deal  with  things  of  time  as  simply 
and  as  certainly  as  God  does.  Here  in  your  Gospels  is  Matthew, 
whom  you  call  and  call  rightly  a  man  of  afi'airs,  tax-gatherer,  merchant, 
— gives  you  your  parables  of  usur}-,  and  buying  and  selling  and  all 
practical  aflairs.  Yes  ;  and  it  is  he  who  writes  down  your  beatitudes; 
v/ith  that  mystic.  ••  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 
It  is  he  who  writes,  "'Fear  not,  little  flock,  it  is  your  Father's  good 
pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom."  It  is  he  who  sings,  shall  I  say  the 
eternal  song  of  welcome  :  "  Come  unto  me,  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy- 
laden  ;  and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of 
me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  of  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  to  your 
souls."  So  easily  and  certainly  does  a  child  of  God  find  the  eternal 
truth,  and  speak  it,  in  the  midst  of  earth's  aftkirs. 

Film  by  film,  shred  by  shred,  this  child  of  God  lays  ofl'  one  and 
another  of  the  environments  which  fetter  him.  The  baby  is  not  held 
longer  in  his  mother's  arms :  he  totters  alone.  At  last,  he  is  master  of 
the  house,  and  may  roam  where  he  will.  Nay,  the  day  comes  when  the 
doubtful  mother  must  let  him  run  out-doors  under  his  own  control.     He 


INCREASE    OF    LIFE. 


47 


grows  to  youth  or  manhood,  and  makes  his  own  home.  Not  even 
orders  from  father  or  mother  rule  him  longer.  Perhaps  he  passes  from 
land  to  land,  acquires  the  sway  of  new  languages,  and  is  not  bound 
even  to  one  country.  Perhaps  his  word  controls  other  men.  What 
he  writes  is  read  by  all  thinkers,  what  he  thinks  is  applied  in  all  laws. 
Perhaps  he  startles  a  generation  of  sleepers,  and  they  take  up  their  beds 
and  walk.  All  this  steady  enlargement  of  life  and  power  is  certain, 
because  he  is  God's  child.  The  soul  in  him  controls  muscle,  nerve, 
sense,  fibre,  blood-vessels,  and  brain.  The  God  in  him  controls  the 
organic  frame  of  an  earthly  tabernacle.  One  step  more,  and  the  sweet 
singer,  who  yesterday  wrote  some  psalm  of  praise  for  a  few  compan- 
ions, casts  off  this  earthly  house  of  a  mortal  tabernacle,  and  joins  in  the 
chorus  of  a  nobler  and  larger  worship. 

The  careful  reasoncr  who,  with  the  little  tricks  of  two  or  three  earthly 
algebras,  untangled  the  problems  of  the  universe,  drops  off  the  house 
of  an  earthly  tabernacle,  sees  as  he  is  seen  and  knows  as  he  is  known, 
and  rejoices  in  the  untangled  heavenly  verities.  The  faithful  friend, 
who  let  no  hour  pass  unless  he  had  ministered  to  this  orphan,  had 
braced  up  yonder  hesitant,  had  lifted  him  who  was  fallen,  or  comforted 
her  who  was  starving,  casts  off  this  frail  house  of  an  earthly  tabernacle  ; 
and  lo  !  infinite  resource  with  which  to  minister,  no  lack  of  time  for 
endeavor,  and  no  grinding  burden  of  fatigue.  She  who,  for  months 
and  years,  lay  gently  on  tlie  sick-bed,  who  received  from  one  and 
another  a  thousand  tender  ministrations  to  her  pain,  and  repaid  them 
all  in  her  thankful  patience, — she  casts  ofT  this  frail  house  of  this  earthly 
tabernacle  ;  and  lo  !  with  tlie  same  love,  with  the  same  patience,  with 
the  same  gratitude,  she  is  ministering  to  them  and  to  ten  thousand  more, 
in  this  glad  freedom  of  disembodied  life.  As  the  baby  passes  into  the 
boy,  the  boy  into  the  youth,  the  youth  into  the  man,  so,  in  one  more 
change,  not  unlike  these  others,  the  child  of  God  stands  free  in  the 
untrammelled  life  of  heaven. 

The  revelation  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ  is  not  simply  the  fact  of  his 
personal  re-appearance  after  death.  Before  he  died,  he  had  quickened 
the  life  of  the  world,  renewed  it,  enlarged  it.  "I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life :  whoso  liveth  and  l^elieveth  in  me  shall  never  die."  Whoever 
lives  with  that  control  of  sense  and  organ  by  the  living  soul  which  to 


48  ,  EASTER. 

the  Christian  man  is  possible,  whoever  rises  superior  to  pain,  hunger, 
want,  whoever  lives  with  the  divine  life  of  a  son  of  God,  that  man 
knows  he  does  not  die.  The  answer  falls  fitly  on  the  wretched  plaint 
of  Martha,  dissatisfied,  as  well  she  might  be,  with  the  faith  of  her  coun- 
try and  of  her  time.  She  sobs  out  her  doleful  creed  :  "I  know  that  he 
shall  rise  again,  at  that  distant  resurrection,  at  that  last  day,  which  is, 
oh,  so  wretchedly  far  away  ! "  How  often  has  that  mournful  plaint  of 
that  Jewish  woman  been  repeated  by  persons  who  have  been  taught 
the  same  Eastern  doctrine  of  a  suspended  animation,  even  in  Christian 
churches!  Christ  will  have  none  of  it.  "Dead!  Do  you  think  I  shall 
die?  You  believe  in  me!  Do  you  think  any  child  of  God  dies.-*  If 
he  once  learns  to  live,  if  he  live  in  the  large  life, — the  life  that  be- 
lieves, that  loves,  that  hopes, — he  knows  he  cannot  die." 

It  is  indeed  a  faith  which  it  needs  such  as  Jesus  to  instill.  Those  who 
knew  him  took  it  in  and  inade  it  real.  For  us,  we  drink  at  the  same 
fountain.  The  promise  was  not  an  empty  promise  ;  and  when  the 
moment  comes,  when  the  cloud  opens  and  the  heaven  reveals  itself,  the 
Comforter,  who  is  the  Holy  Spirit,  speaks  to  us.  Nor  is  it  any  new 
doctrine.  It  is  the  vsrord  which  spoke  from  the  beginning.  The  Com- 
forter speaks  to  say  that  the  world  of  God  is  larger  than  this  world  of 
man.  The  life  of  God  is  larger  than  this  life,  hemmed  in  by  the  pow- 
ers of  five  senses  only,  and  unable  to  know  more  or  to  do  more.  The 
Father  of  perfect  love  is  always  training  us  for  that  larger  life  and  those 
fuller  powers.  Sometimes  he  shows  us  that  this  is  possible.  When 
he  calls  the  careful  thinker  who  has  exhausted  earthly  processes,  or  the 
brave  leader  who  has  quickened  a  thousand  thousand  lives,  nay,  the 
loving  boy  who  has  shown  me  what  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  and  what 
it  is  like,  or  the  unselfish  mother  whose  life  has  been  all  made  up 
of  help  and  blessing  to  those  around  her, — when  God  lifts  these  into  a 
life  unembodied,  and  therefore  unseen,  he  teaches  me  again  the  lesson 
which  Jesus  was  teaching  always.  Such  lives  have  larger  sphere  and 
duty ;  for  God's  purpose  is  larger  than  these  cramped  places  and  these 
passing  hours.  Who  lives  as  they  have  lived,  and  with  such  faith  as 
their  faith,  these  never  die. 


THE   LAW   OF   CHANGE. 

BY  JOHN    STKRLING. 

While  under  heaven's  warm  evening  hues 
They  felt  their  eyes  and  bosoms  glow, 

They  learned  how  fondly  fancy  views 
Fair  sights  the  moment  ere  they  go  ; 

And  then,  while  earth  was  darkening  o'er, 
While  stars  began  their  tranquil  day. 

Rejoiced  that  Nature  gives  us  more 
Than  all  it  ever  takes  away. 

In  earliest  autumn's  fading  woods, 

Remote  from  eyes,  they  roamed  at  mom, 

And  saw  how'Time  transmuting  broods 
O'er  all  that  into  Time  is  born. 

The  power  which  men  would  fain  forget— 
The  law  of  change  and  slow  decay — 

Csone  to  them  with  a  mild  regret, 
A  brightness  veiled  in  softening  gr&y. 


CONSIDER  THE  LILIES, 


"  Consider  the  lilies,  how  they  grow." — Mati".  vi,  28. 

They  do  not  grow  in  any  spasm  of  sudden  resolution.  They  seem 
to  wake  up,  after  long  indifference.  They  seem  to  rush  eagerly  to  light 
and  air,  to  burst  into  blossom  as  quickly  as  they  can,  and  then  to  die. 
But  the  truth  is  that  all  last  year  they  were  collecting  and  digesting 
from  rain  and  sunshine  and  air  the  material  which  they  use  in  all  this 
outburst.  If  the  bulb  had  not  done  its  underground  duty  then,  if  all 
nature  in  union  had  not  done  its  work  then, — if  the  sun  had  not  shone, 
the  world  turned  on  its  axis  and  flown  through  space,  if  the  heavens 
had  not  clouded  and  cleared,  and  raindrops  formed  and  fallen, — there 
would  be  no  lily  to-day.  The  lily  does  not  have  to  toil.  It  does  not 
have  to  spin.  Worlds  have  moved  to  and  fro  that  it  might  blossom, 
rocks  have  been  ground  to  powder  by  glacier  and  by  the  tooth  of  time, 
soils  have  been  drifted  hither  and  thither  as  ages  have  passed  by, 
that  the  lily  might  have  a  place  to  stand,  might  have  food  to  di- 
gest, might  have  beauty  and  fragrance  for  your  delight.  What  the 
lily  has  done  or  has  been  in  all  this  infinite  movement  is  this.  It 
has  accepted  the  universe.  It  has  waited  for  its  time,  and  then  has 
pushed  its  germ  to  the  sky  and  its  rootlets  into  the  soil.  It  has  not 
tried  to  be  a  law  unto  itself,  or  to  live  and  blossom  and  have  a  being  or 
some  system  of  its  own. 

Such  hint,  at  least  for  our  own  lives,  do  we  gain  when  we  consider 
the  lilies,  how  they  grow.  This  is  the  hint  which  the  Saviour  meant 
to  give.  Eager  as  he  is  that  you  and  I  shall  recognize  the  present 
God,  shall  gain  from  his  presence  just  the  comfort  and  strength  that  he 
did,  shall  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  in  him,  he  asks  us  to  con- 
sider the  lilies ;  for  they  are  trusting  God,  are  obeying  the  great  law  ot 
nature  in  which  they  have  their  place  and  their  duty.     On  the  one  hand, 

(50) 


CONSIDER    THE    LILIES.  5 1 

they  do  not  exaggerate  their  duty.  Therefore,  their  days  are  not  made 
wretched  by  toil.  They  do  their  part.  On  the  other  hand,  they  do 
not  sulk  nor  compel  attendant  slaves  to  clothe  them  in  such  robes  as  the 
servants  of  Solomon  brought  him.  They  do  their  part,  but  that  partis 
not  toil.  It  is  not  abject.  It  is  clear  enough  that  the  lily  enjoys  its  life 
witli  all  the  heart  and  soul  it  has.  It  does  its  little  part  gladly,  and 
from  the  Infinite  Love  and  Infinite  Beauty  it  accepts  the  rest.  Here  is 
our  lesson. 

'  In  the  great  jubilee  of  spring-time,  which  with  us  takes  form  as 
Easter,  and  which  takes  some  fit  form  in  all  religious  systems,  men  do 
not  simply  celebrate  the  new  life  of  the  world.  They  are  sure  to  add 
to  that  recognition  their  praise  of  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the  world. 
It  is  that  feeling  which  heaps  up  your  roses  on  the  communion  tabic, 
and  brings  to  me  in  the  pulpit  here  the  annual  glory  of  my  pansies  and 
the  sweet,  timid  blush  of  my  blood-root.  Scepticism  has  found,  in  our 
time,  a  coarse  and  hard  reply  to  the  statement  that  the  firmament  shows 
God's  hand-work.  "You  must  not  say  that,  because  the  world  is, 
God  is."  This  is  the  statement.  "  For  if  the  world  were  not.  you 
would  not  be,  and  you  could  not  be  arguing.  This  is  what  has  hap- 
pened to  survive,  under  the  law  of  selection,  in  which  no  one  selects." 
But  no  such  reply  annoys  me,  no  such  doubt  perplexes  me,  when  I 
have  in  my  hand  a  spring  anemone,  or  a  sweet  violet,  or  the  lily  of  the 
field.  The  world  could  have  existed  without  either  of  them.  The 
great  dice-box  of  Destiny  could  have  flung  out  its  worlds  into  space, 
with  no  fragrant  violet,  with  no  wind-blown  anemone,  with  ho  lily  of 
the  field,  and  the  balance  of  gravitation  would  still  have  been  perfect, 
the  world  would  have  rushed  without  fragi'ance  and  beauty  wildly 
through  space.  When  in  the  same  blossom  my  eye  now  revels  in 
color,  when  I  find  exquisite  form  and  perfect  grace,  as  I  enjoy  the 
fragrance  with  the  color  and  the  form,  you  find  it  hard  to  persuade  me 
that  this  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  When  I  find  the  dice  always 
turn  up  triplets,  I  am  sure  that  some  conscious  Power  loaded  them. 
Whatever  power  made  rose  and  lily,  and  violet  and  anemone,  had  the 
sense  of  beauty  and  knew  what  my  sense  of  beauty  would  be.  So  that 
I  find  the  exquisite  rhodora  waiting  for  me  in  the  wilderness,  I  say 
gladly, — it  is  my  spontaneous  thought, — "  The  self-same  Power  that 
brought  me  here  brought  you," 


52  EASTBR. 

I  think  I  have  told  the  story  here  of  one  of  my  college  teachers  wh  > 
joined  me  one  evening  in  Cambridge,  when  I  was  returning  from  some 
long  tramp,  with  full  store  in  my  tin  box  of  wild  flowers  which  had 
been  opening  for  me  and  waiting  for  me.  With  an  air  of  reproach,  the 
learned  man  said  to  me  that  he  wished  he  also  knew  something  of  flowers, 
but  that,  when  he  was  of  my  age,  he  was  wholly  occupied  in  the  care 
and  cure  of  his  soul,  and  had  no  heart  or  time  for  such  things.  "  Now 
I  have  all  that  settled,"  he  said,  with  some  self-respect,  "  I  wish  I  knew 
something  of  botany." 

I  was  too  young,  and  I  trust  too  modest,  to  reply.  But  I  know  now, 
what  I  suspected  then,  that  that  man  was  a  fool.  I  know  now  that  I  could 
have  put  my  soul  into  no  better  training  than  it  would  gain  in  a  fresh 
walk  under  God's  open  sky,  while  I  was  exulting  in  the  dainty  delicac}' 
of  his  work  and  enjoying  the  lavish  exuberance  of  the  love  which  cares 
for  all  of  us.  True,  I  had  gone  for  my  flowers  from  "  native  impulse." 
I  had  never  analyzed  my  motive  nor  made  it  matter  of  study.  I  went 
because  I  wanted  to.  I  liked  to  do  that  much  more  than  I  liked  to 
read  Bickersteth's  Christian  Student  or  Doddridge's  Rise  and  Prog- 
ress^ which  m}'  friend  would  have  wished  me  to  be  reading.  And  I 
believe,  what  I  do  not  pretend  to  prove,  that  that  native  joy  came  to  me 
thus,  because  the  Power  that  put  the  flowers  here  put  me  here,  because 
his  life  is  in  all  his  works,  and  that  his  children,  of  whom  I  am 
one,  come  closer  to  him  as  they  know^  more  and  more  of  his  handiwork 
and  enjoy  what  he  enjoys,  as  they  watch  the  present  life  in  which  his 
creatures  live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  I  say  the  present  life 
in  which  they  are  now  growing.  God  is  :  his  name  is  I  Am.  It  is  not  per- 
haps easy  to  think  of  him  as  acting  now,  with  just  the  thought  and  feel- 
ing with  which  the  poet  says  he  acted  in  the  beginning,  when  God  said, 
•'Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass."  But  it  ought  not  to  be  impos- 
sible. God  now  says,  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass."  He  is 
saying  it  at  this  instant ;  and,  because  lie  is  saying  it  at  tills 
instant,  the  earth  is  bringing  forth  grass  at  this  instant.  Just 
the  same  creation  is  going  forward  now  which,  for  convenience 
of  language,  we  say  went  forward  then,  in  what,  for  convenience 
of  language,  we  call  the  beginning.  Perhaps  one  feels  this  present 
power  of  a  present  God  a  little  more  vividly  when  one  sees  it  in  a:i 
unaccustomed  way.     I  have  told  the  storj'  here  of  one  of  our  first  men 


CONSIDER    THE    LILIES.  53 

of  science,  of  whom  it  would  be  fair  to  say  that  he  experienced  reh'g- 
ion, — though  not  for  the  first  time,  indeed, — when  he  first  put  his  eye 
to  the  eye-piece  of  a  compound  microscope  of  high  power.  In  that 
moment,  he  w^as  a  witness,  at  least,  of  the  present  work  of  God, — see- 
ing crj'stals  shape  themselves,  seeing  cells  enlarge  and  double  and 
separate,  seeing  growth  in  what  seems  to  be  its  origin.  In  truth, 
there  is  nothing  more  remarkable  when  I  see  an  atom,  just  now 
invisible,  choose  its  conscious  course  and  w^ork  its  way  across  a  tiny 
drop,  than  there  is  when  I  see  an  eagle  mount  in  the  sky,  poise  himself 
in  mid-heaven,  and  plunge  in  the  deep  below.  In  both  cases,  I  see  an 
exertion  of  spontaneous  will  ;  and  that  is  always  unexplainable.  But, 
when  I  see  this  through  the  microscope,  the  sight  shocks  my  dead 
habit ;  and  I  feel  that  God  is  now  as  he  was  in  the  beginning,  and  as  he 
ever  will  be,  world  without  end. 

"  I  Am  is  thy  memorial  still."  Fortunately  for  me,  I  said  something 
like  this  in  preaching  in  England  two  years  ago  ;  and,  fortunately  for  me, 
one  of  the  first  naturalists  of  our  time  happened  to  hear  me.  He  was 
kind  enough  to  stop  after  the  service  and  introduce  himself  to  me,  and 
make  an  appointment  with  me,  that  with  my  eyes  I  might  see  some  of 
these  marvels  in  a  world  which  in  our  language  is  small,  while  in  other 
languages  it  may  be  as  great  as  to  us  is  the  world  of  Arcturus  and  of 
Orion.  Of  the  marvels  which  that  day  he  showed  me,  that  which  I 
find  stands  out  in  my  memory  most  distinctly  is  the  home  which  a  little 
creature  builds  for  itself  from  specks  of  quartz  sand  at  the  d:;pth  ot 
about  a  mile  beneath  the  surface  of  the  ocean.  Of  these  little  creatures 
there  are  thousands  of  varieties.  When  their  spring-time  comes  to 
them  in  their  dark  home,  whatever  that  spring-time  mav  be.  thesjllttlj 
creatures  build  for  themselves  their  houses  or  their  nests,  each  in  his 
fashion,  just  as  the  sparrow  builds  his  nest  in  one  fashion  uuler  my 
piazza,  and  the  hang-bird  builds  his  in  my  elm-tree  in  anotlier.  To 
speak  only  of  one  of  them,  whose  house  I  saw  from  every  point  of  view, 
he  chooses  t'>  select  for  its  material  only  the  finest  quartz  sand,  from  the 
varied  material  of  the  bottom  of  the  ocean.  The  whole  house,  wh.Mi  it 
is  done,  is  about  the  size  of  the  head  of  the  smallest  pin.  For  t!iis 
there  are  needed  something  like  one  million  atoms  of  the  sand.  These 
atoms  are  formed  in  a  perfect  sphere,  with  a  little  neck  at  the  top,  like 
.the   short,  open  neck  of  a  flask.     The  atoms  are  of  every  conceivable 


54  EASTKR. 

shape,  .and  precisely  resemble  under  the  microscope  the  stinics  in  a  wall 
in  a  New  England  pasture.  And  precisely  as  a  skilful  workman  will 
fit  those  stones  together,  so  that  the  cracks  betw^een  them  shall  be  the 
smallest  possible,  precisely  as  he  makes  one  side  of  his  wall  smooth  or 
flat,  while  he  is  indiflerent  to  the  other  side,  and  leaves  it  jagged  and 
uneven,  so  docs:  this  little  creature  work,  in  building  the  little  gourd- 
shaped  bottle  which  is  his  home.  The  outside  is  as  smooth  as  possi- 
ble, the  inside  is  rough,  as  might  happen  from  the  shape  of  the  stones 
he  handled.  How  much  the  little  creature  knows  I  cannot  tell.  But, 
like  the  lily,  he  know\s  the  law  of  the  universe  in  w^hich  he  lives  :  he 
makes  himself  a  part  of  that  universe,  he  accepts  its  conditions  and  does 
his  share.  I  believe  he  does  it  consciously.  I  believe  he  does  it  because 
he  wishes  to  do  it.  If  he  does,  he  also  is  a  fellow-workman  together 
with  God. 

I  grant  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  thinking,  feeling,  believing,  and 
seeing  that  God  is  a  spirit.  I  am  afraid  that  difficulty  will  yet  last  for 
generations.  The  woman  felt  it  at  Sychar,  when  Jesus  said,  "  God  is 
a  Spirit"  ;  and  her  brothers  and  sisters  have  felt  it  ever  since,  and  will 
continue  to  feel  it  for  a  long  time.  Even  the  language  of  the  best  books 
does  not  alw^ays  help  us.  Thus,  the  Bible  language  and  the  hymns 
drawn  from  it  often  run  back  to  the  child's  notion,  which  was  the  ear- 
lier Jew^ish  notion,  that  God  lives  in  a  joarticular  place,  that  he  waits  for 
this  message,  and  that  he  sends  that  angel.  But,  in  this  great  business 
which  is  central,  everything  makes  one  hopeful  now.  All  science 
shows  more  and  more  one  law'  in  all  space  and  in  all  time.  Whatever 
Power  made  this  world,  the  same  Power  sustains  it,  made  and  sustains 
Arcturus  and  Orion.  To  this  Power  there  is  no  such  limitation  as 
Space,  there  is  no  such  limitation  as  Time.  Now,  about  this  Present 
Power,  you  may  have  two  notions.  According  as  you  have  one  notion, 
you  may  call  it  "It,"  and  say,  "  It  does  not  know'  what  it  is  doing." 
Or  you  may  call  this  power  "  He,"  and  you  may  say,  "  He  does  know 
what  he  is  doing."  In  this  last  case,  you  accept  the  religious  philoso- 
phy of  Jesus  Christ.  As  you  consider  the  lilies,  you  see  in  them  the 
tokens  of  God's  present  love  and  of  his  present  wish  that  this  world 
among  other  worlds  may  be  beautiful  and  happy.  To  take  Miss  Fuller's 
phrase,  which  I  used  before,  you  "  accept  the  universe."     To  take  the 


CONSIDKR    THE    LILIES.  55 

quaint  phrase  of  the  catechism,  you  "  enjoy  God."  Best  of  all,  per- 
haps, is  the  phrase  of  the  parable, — ^you  "  enter  into  the  joy  of  your 
Lor^." 

I  certainly  am  not  going  to  argue  in  five  minutes  this  great  question, 
whether  the  Power  which  sustains  this  universe  is  He  or  is  It ;  whether 
He  be  conscious  of  his  work  or  not.  Indeed,  I  do  not  think  that  ques- 
tion will  ever  be  solved  by  argument.  Rather,  I  believe  that  a  world  of 
the  conscious  children  of  this  God  steadily  moves  forward  and  upw^ard 
to  its  own  solution  of  the  question,  and  with  every  day,  indeed,  of  the 
world's  life,  knows  him  more  and  knows  him  better.  "Nearer,  my 
God,  to  Thee,  nearer  to  Thee."  In  this  great  issue,  I  like  Dr.  George 
Putnam's  epigram.  "You  say  that  all  this  beauty,  wisdom,  tender- 
ness, harmony,  are  the  result  of  certain  laws  of  matter,  w^hich  you  tell 
me  are  one  law.  I  accept  your  conclusion.  I  believe  what  you  say, 
only  with  a  little  change  of  language.  If  Matter  can  do  such  wonders 
as  these,  w^onders  which  in  my  highest  spiritual  flight  I  enjoy  and  prize, 
I  find  it  better  to  call  it  Spirit.  What  you  call  Matter  I  call  Spirit." 
Or,  as  a  matter  of  statement,  I  have  found  many  people  are  helped  by 
Freeman  Clarke's  simple  statement,  which  I  wish  I  could  repeat  in  his 
own  clear  language.  ' '  You  say  that  this  exquisite  human  organization  in 
which  a  million  million  cells  of  being  cooperate  with  each  other  for  one 
aim  has  resulted  in  the  marvel  of  thought,  in  the  marvel  of  conscious 
being,  and  in  the  greater  marvels  of  faith  and  hope  and  love.  You  tell 
me  it  is  possible  for  a  bit  of  mechanism  to  be  so  exquisitely  perfect  that 
the  result  is  conscious  life  ;  as  if  the  beautiful  organ  yonder  were  so 
marv'ellously  formed  that  of  itself,  without  direction,  it  should  begin, 
when  it  chose,  to  play  a  symphony  more  marvellous  than  Beethoven 
ever  dreamed  of,  and,  when  it  chose,  should  cease  and  be  still.  Ver>' 
well.  If  mechanism  can  thus  rise  to  consciousness  in  man,  why  may 
not  the  mechanism  and  harmony  of  your  universe  rise  to  consciousness 
as  well?  Why  might  not  all  the  stars  of  the  morning  sing  together, 
when  they  heard  all  the  sons  of  men  shouting  for  joy  ?  "  I  acknowl- 
edge that  these  are  not  arguments :  they  are  simply  statements  in 
language,  by  two  clear-headed  men,  not  apt  to  deceive  themselves  in  a 
matter  where  they  would  not  argue.  I  quote  them,  because  1  think 
what  is  needed  most  is  to  rescue  the  language  in  which  we  speak  of 


56  EASTER. 

God,  the  Infinite  Spirit,  from  the  language  in  which  children  might 
speak,  or  savages, — the  language  of  idol  worshippers  or  of  those  who 
imprison  God  in  a  visible  form.  Let  me  just  say  this,  and  it  shall  be 
all.  There  is  to  me  something  amazing  in  that  presumption  which  I 
meet  now  and  then  in  the  reviews,  which  really  supposes  that  the  thou- 
sand million  men,  more  or  less,  who  live  in  visible  bodies  in  this  little 
world,  are  the  only  conscious  beings  in  the  infinite  universe.  It  was 
absurd  enough,  in  the  days  of  men's  ignorance,  to  suppose  that  sun, 
moon,  planets,  and  stars  all  circled  around  this  little  globe  of  ours, — 
absurd  enough  to  suppose  that  sun  and  moon  were  set  only  to  give  us 
light,  and  that  stars  were  set  in  constellations  only  that  men  might 
exult  in  their  beauty.  But  this  absurdity  is  nothing  to  the  arrogant  inso- 
lence of  the  presumption  which  tells  me  that,  while  I  am  conscious  of 
my  existence  here  and  look  back  with  interest  on  my  past  and  with 
curiosity  on  my  future,  the  Power  which  makes  me  and  sustains  me, 
orders  the  sun  to  paint  the  lily  for  me  and  bids  the  lily  grow  to  be 
painted,  is  not  conscious  of  his  past,  is  not  conscious  of  his  present  work, 
and  is  not  curious  about  his  future.  This  arrogance  reaches  its  climax, 
when  we  are  told,  as  we  so  often  are,  that  we  men,  forsooth,  who  are 
the  lords  of  creation,  are  indeed  its  only  conscious  inhabitants, — so  many 
Alexander  Selkirks,  indeed,  stranded  on  the  edge  of  a  desert. 

"  I  am  monarch  of  all  I  survey. 
My  reign  there  is  none  to  dispute." 

But  I  did  not  ask  you  to  consider  the  lilies,  that  I  might  engage  in 
this  high  argument  which  is,  as  I  suppose,  beyond  logical  reasoning. 
I  wanted  to  say  enough,  this  morning,  shall  I  say,  to  justify  our  instinct- 
ive passion  for  flowers,  and  gardening,  and  nature,  and  the  woods.  I 
want  to  do  honor  to  that  nerve  of  the  eternal  life  which  rvms  through  it 
all,  and  makes  its  joy  part,  indeed,  and  element  of  the  joy  of  God.  This 
is  no  poor  bit  of  the  pleasure  of  sense  alone.  The  passion  that  takes 
you  out  of  doors  is  not  one  of  the  vulgar,  selfish,  or  personal  passions 
which  Puritans  were  right  in  holding  under  lock  and  key.  Here  is  the 
child  of  God  who  wants  to  know  what  his  Father  is  doing.  His  own 
life  quickens  and  warms  and  grows  young  as  days  grow  longer  and  the 
sun  rides  higher,  and  it  is  in  his  godly  nature  and  by  one  of  the  divine 
laws  that  he  delights  to  see  how  other  creatures  of  God  are  break- 
ing from  their  wintry  prison.     Life  seeks   life  and  loves  life.      In  the 


CONSIDER    THE    LILIES.  57 

opening  of  a  catkin  of  a  willow,  in  the  flight  of  the  butterfly,  in  the 
chirping  of  a  tree-toad  or  the  sweep  of  an  eagle,  my  life  loves  to  see  how 
others  live,  exults  in  their  joy  and  so  far  is  partner  in  their  great  con- 
cern. And  this  is  really  what  we  mean  when  we  say,  what  I  think 
people  generallv  understand,  that  a  man  is  apt  to  be  nearer  to  God  when 
he  is  out  of  doors  than  when  he  is  in  his  home.  Literally,  this  might  not 
be  tnie.  But  what  we  are  after  is  the  larger  Life.  We  do  not  want  to 
be  limited  wholly  by  things  of  the  flesh,  what  we  shall  eat,  what  we 
shall  drink.  After  these  things,  the  Gentiles  seek,  the  Philistines,  most 
of  all.  What  we  do  need  is  more  of  God.  It  may  be  some  sudden  and 
new  hint  of  him,  it  may  be  the  infinite  and  perpetual  lesson  of  the  ocean 
or  of  the  stars.  Always  it  is  Life, — life  larger  than  a  room,  life  larger 
than  a  day.  It  was  when  he  got  outside  a  room  that  the  first  man, 
in  the  cool  of  the  day,  walked  with  God.  And  for  us,  in  these  later 
days,  it  is  that  we  may  walk  with  God,  more  and  more  often,  that  the 
Saviour  bids  us  "  consider  the  lilies." 


LUTHER'S   EASTER   HYMN. 

In  the  bonds  of  Death  He  lay 

Who  for  our  oftence  Avas  slain ; 
But  the  Lord  is  risen  to-day, 

Christ  hath  brought  us  life  again. 
Wherefore  let  us  all  rejoice,  . 
Singing  loud  with  cheerful  voice. 
Hallelujah  ! 

Of  the  sons  of  men,  was  none 

Who  could  break  the  bonds  of  Death  ; 
Sin  this  mischief  dire  had  done  ; 
Innocent  was  none  on  earth. 
Wherefore  Death  grew  strong  and  bold, 
Would  all  men  in  his  prison  hold. 
Hallelujah  ! 

Jesus  Christ,  God's  only  Son, 

Came  at  last  our  foe  to  smite, 
All  our  sins  away  hath  done. 

Done  away  Death's  power  and  might. 
Only  the  form  of  Death  is  left, 
Of  his  sting  he  is  bereft. 
Hallelujah  ! 

That  was  a  wondrous  war,  I  trow, 

When  Life  and  Death  together  fought, 

But  Life  hath  triumph'd  o'er  his  foe, 
Death  is  mock'd  and  set  at  naught. 
(58) 


Luther's  easter  hymn.  59 

*T  is  even  as  the  Scripture  saith, 

Christ  through  death  has  conquer'd  Death  ;  . 

Hallelujah ! 

The  rightful  Paschal  Lamb  is  He, 

On  whom  alone  we  all  must  live, 
Who  to  death  upon  the  tree, 

Himself  in  wondrous  love  did  give. 
Faith  strikes  His  blood  upon  the  door. 
Death  fell,  and  dares  not  harm  us  more. 
Hallelujah ! 

Let  us  keep  high  festival 

On  this  most  blessed  day  of  days, 
When  God  his  mercy  showed  to  all ; 
Our  Sun  is  risen  with  brightest  rays, 
And  our  dark  hearts  rejoice  to  see 
Sin  and  night  before  Him  flee. 
Hallelujah ! 

To  the  supper  of  the  Lord, 

Gladly  will  we  come  to-day ; 
The  word  of  peace  is  now  restored, 
The  old  leaven  is  put  away. 
Christ  will  be  our  food  alone. 
Faith  no  life  but  His  doth  own. 
Hallelujah ! 


EASTER, 


"  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." — JOHN  xiv,  19. 

The  sects  in  the  Church  might  be  judged  by  a  comparison  of  their 
favorite  holidays.  And  so  might  eras  in  history  be  judged.  It  is  matter 
of  real  interest,  then,  to  see  how  all  poets  and  prophets  of  all  divisions 
of  the  Church  unite  on  this  day,  to  proclaim  it  the  Sunday  of  Sundays, 
the  High  Holy  Day  of  the  year.  For  this  is  to  say  that  poet  and  proph- 
et, of  every  sect  and  those  least  sectarian,  have  found  out  at  last  that 
the  Christian  Religion  stands  for  Life.  Life  instead  of  form  ;  Life  in- 
stead of  Laws  ;  Life  instead  of  Grave-clothes  ;  Life  instead  of  Tombs  ; 
Life  instead  of  Death  ; — that  is  what  Christianity  means,  and  w^hat  it  is 
for.  You  would  be  tempted  to  say  that  the  Saviour  had  already  enforced 
this  completely  in  what  he  said  to  men  ;  tempted  to  say  that  Easter 
morning  was  not  needed  either  for  illustration  or  enforcement.  Certain- 
ly the  gospel  texts  are  full  of  the  lesson.  "  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live 
also."  "  As  the  Father  hath  life  in  himself,  so  hath  he  given  to  the  Son 
to  have  life  in  himself."  "  This  is  Life  Eternal — to  believe  on  thee." 
And  central  text  of  all,  the  text  we  have  chosen  for  the  motto  of  this 
church,  "  I  have  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly."  If  texts  alone  ever  did  anything,  these  and 
a  thousand  more  would  show  what  The  Truth  is,  and  The  Way.  But 
one  is  tempted,  in  bitter  moods,  to  say  that  texts  never  do  anything,  that 
words  never  achieve  or  finish  anything.  One  is  tempted  to  remember 
how  he  said  that  any  man  who  prepared  God's  way  is  greater  than  any 
man  who  only  proclaims  it,  how  prophets  and  prophesying  were  done 
with,  mere  talk  was  over — praise  the  Lord  !  and  energ}>  action,  force 
had  come  in  instead,  praise  the  Lord  !  Yet,  if  anybody  did  still  trust  in 
talk,  he  might  take  a  lesson  from  these  Gospels. 

(60) 


EASTEK.  6l 

Here  are  all  these  people,  high  and  low,  on  tenter-hooks  of  excitement 
and  curiosity.  "  What  has  this  man  to  teach  ?  Where  will  that  man  take 
us?  What  is  this  Judas  the  Gaulonite  after?  What  has  that  Edomite 
to  propose?  What  will  Theudas  promise?"  John  Baptist  comes  in. 
"Who  is  he?  Is  he  Elijah?  Has  he  any  plan?  Has  he  any  word? 
There  is  a  Nazarene  up  at  Capernaum.  Nobody  ever  talked  like  him, 
and  he  has  made  a  blind  man  see.  Let  us  go  and  find  him."  They 
come  swarming  up  around  him,  block  the  streets,  block  the  roads,  press 
over  the  house§  where  he  is  at  meat,  to  ask  him  what  he  proposes. 
LWhat  does  Ke  propose  ?  Life  !  That  those  who  are  dead  shall  live. 
That  people  shall  pray  for  themselves,  who  have  been  praying  by  proxy. 
That  people  shall  pray  where  they  are,  who  have  been  going  to  Jerusa- 
lem to  worship.  That  people  shall  do  themselves  what  they  have  been 
expecting  others  to  do.  That  people  shall  enter  heaven  now,  which  they 
have  been  supposing  should  wait  for  them  after  ages  of  teons.  God  is 
yours.  Heaven  is  yours,  if  you  would  only  Live.  Why,  if  you  had  as 
much  life  in  you  as  this  grain  of  mustard  seed  has,  you  would  share  God's 
own  power,  and  live  in  God's  own  heaven  !  For  God  is  Here,  and  God 
is  Now.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.  Life  !  That  is  what  he 
proposes. 

These  words^  even  dimly  echoed,  shake  the  ages.  If  words  alone 
were  worth  much,  you  would  say  that  they  must  have  touched  to  the 
heart  the  men  who  heard  them,  the  women  and  the  children.  I  do  not 
say,  but  in  a  fashion,  they  did  touch  them.  But  what  appeared  on  the 
surface  was,  that  when  he  said  some  such  words,  this  group  of  his  hear- 
ers would  say,  "  Can't  you  show  us  a  miracle,  as  you  showed  the  people 
of  Nain?"  and  that  set  of  people  would  say,  "  Can't  you  feed  us  hereon 
the  grass,  as  you  fed  us  last  week  by  the  lake-side?"  and  these  near 
friends  would  say,  "  Cannot  you  make  me  Senator  and  cannot  you  make 
me  a  Publican,  when  you  come  into  your  kingdom,  and  have  offices  to 
fill  ?  "  "  J'iff! ''  Yes,  that  sounds  all  very  well  in  sermons,  and  when  one 
is  making  a  platform,  but,  as  between  friends,  other  things  are  to  be  con- 
sidered." So  that,  so  far  as  appears,  the  applause  of  the  multitudes,  and 
the  crowded  streets  of  Capernaum,  of  Tiberias  and  of  Jericho,  never  ad- 
vanced the  real  kingdom  by  the  breadth  of  one  hair. 

I  do  not  think  it  would  be  fanciful,  as  it  certainly  would  not  be  dif- 


62  RASTER. 

ficult,  to  describe  the  different  set  of  people  among  those  wlio  surrounded 
him,  who,  from  one  prejudice  or  other,  or  from  one  or  another  one- 
sidedness,  missed  the  reality,  Life^  and  took  from  him  and  his  words 
something  less  which  they  could  have  taken  from  earthen  vessels. 

1 .  There  were  mere  sentimentalists,  who  were  so  passionately  in  love 
with  him,  that  they  must  be  always  kissing  the  hem  of  his  garment,  or 
sitting  in  his  shadow.  They  were  worthless  when  he  was  out  of  sight, 
they  were  useless  when  he  sent  them  on  an  eri'and.  If  he  said  firmly, 
"  I  must  go  away,"  they  were  not  simply  in  tears,  they  were  prostrate 
and  wretched  ;  and  when  he  went  away,  in  truth,  it  proved  that  they  had 
not  found  out  what  the  word  '•  Life  "  means.  That  type  of  people  ex- 
ists in  the  church  to  this  hour. 

2.  Then  there  were  the  "  Doctrinaires"  shall  I  call  them,  the  peo- 
ple with  the  ink-horns  and  note-books,  the  "■  scribes  and  lawyers." 
They  knew  what  he  said  on  the  second  day  of  Xisan,  and  they  could  com- 
pare it  with  what  he  said  on  the  *••  second  Sabbath  after  the  First."  '•*■  I 
tell  you  he  said,  '  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  on  our  side.'  I  have  it 
written  down  here."  "  I  don't  care  for  that,  he  certainly  said,  '  He  that 
is  not  with  me  is  against  me.'  He  said  it,  that  day  vs^e  ate  our  lunch  by 
the  tamarisk  tree.  Here  are  my  notes,"  ''  I  am  sure  he  said,  '  A  proph- 
et is  without  honor  except  in  his  own  country,'  here*  are  the  words," 
"  What  do  I  care  for  your  words.''  Perhaps  you  do  not  read  your  notfes 
right.  Now  mine  ai'e  perfectly  plain.  '  A  prophet  is  not  without  hon- 
or, except  in  his  own  country,'  He  said  it  to  Simon  the  Smith,  when 
we  met  him  at  J3ethany,"  These  are  the  people  who  lost  sight  of  Life 
in  the  Letter,  The  same  type  of  people  exist  in  the  church  to-day. 
Jesus  tried  to  silence  them,  but  he  did  not  silence  them  by  what  he  said 
of  jots  and  tittles.  Paul  tried  to  do  the  same,  when  he  said,  "  The  Let- 
ter killeth,  and  the  Spirit  giveth  Life."  If  woids  had  been  worth  more 
we  should  never  have  heard  of  them  again. 

3.  Then  there  was  another  set  of  people,  whom  I  might  call  the  im- 
itative people,  who  were  very  precise  about  method.  "  Did  you  see 
John  Baptist  with  him  at  the  Jordan .?  Then  you  can  tell  us  all  about 
it.?  How  deep  did  they  go  into  the  water.'*  Did  John  take  his  hand, 
or  did  he  take  a  shell,  when  he  baptized  him.''"  "  You  are  quite  sure 
that  he  did  not  wash  his  hands  before  he  went  into  Matthew's  dinner  par- 
ty ?  "     "  Yes,  quite  sure."     "  Remember  that,  Salome,  he  did  not  wash 


EASTKR.  65 

his  hands,  be  sure  you  remember."  **  Are  you  sure  he  ate  quail  on  the 
Fast-day  ?  "  "I  am  perfectly  sure,  my  sister  saw  him."  "  You  are  sure 
it  was  not  after  sun-down  ?  "  "  After  sun-down  ?  Oh,  no  !  the  sun  was 
an  hour  high."  "Remember,  Salome,  could  you  not  write  it  down.? 
The  sun  was  an  hour  high."  "  You  say  they  rubbed  the  corn  in  their 
hands.?"  "  Certainly  they  rubbed  it  in  their  hands."  "  Had  they  no  linen 
cloth  to  rub  it  in  ?"  "  No.  There  was  no  clotli  at  all."  "  Salome,  write 
that  down.  Corn  eaten  on  the  Sabbath  day  is  not  to  be  rubbed  in  a  linen 
cloth,  it  is  to  be  rubbed  in  the  hands." 

These  are  the  people  who  lose  Life  in  their  anxiety  for  form.  You  see 
I  do  not  exaggerate.  Just  that  class  of  Christians,  such  as  they  are,  ex- 
ist to-day,  and  make  up  large  sections  of  the  church,  if  we  could  believe, 
as,  thank  God,  we  cannot,  the  technical  classifications. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  folly,  Jesus  moved  as  simply  and  as  omnipo- 
tently as  Orion  moves  across  a  winter  sky,  careless  of  cloud,  careless  of 
gust  of  snow,  careless  of  smoke  or  dust,  careless  of  whirlwinds.  If 
people  see  him,  well ;  if  they  do  not  see  him,  so  much  the  worse  for  them. 
No  matter,  he  is  the  same.  Let  them  take  or  make  this  lesson  or  that 
lesson,  he  is  the  same.  Life  and  Eternal  Life — that  is  what  he  stands 
for.  God  with  Man.  The  Eternal  Life  of  the  Unchanging  God  in  the 
Human  Form  and  in  the  midst  of  Earth's  surroundings !  "j 

Yes,  my  friends,  and  so  we  ask  naturally,  "  Do  we  see  him  ?  "  But  even 
that  is  of  no  consequence,  he  tells  us,  in  comparison  with  this.  "  Are 
we  alive?"  Nay,  that  question  itself  deceives  us.  Are  we  even  sure 
that  we  know  what  the  word  Life  means.?  There  is  a  description,  some- 
where, of  the  new  emotion,  the  new  senses,  the  new  joy,  the  wild,  strange 
surprise,  with  which  an  imaginative  man,  new-made,  saw  sunrise  and 
its  glories,  drank  in  the  freshness  of  morning  and  the  luxury  of  day  for 
the  first  time,  readv  to  sing  as  Adam  sang, 

"These  are  thy  glorious  gifts,  P'ather  of  all." 

"  How  could  it  be  for  the  first  time  .•'  "  says  some  Nicodemus.  "  Could 
he  enter  again  into  his  mother's  womb  and  be  born  ?  "  It  was  for  the 
first  time,  because  in  the  reckless  habits  of  those  days  in  Kentucky,  where 
this  man  lived,  he  could  not  remember  till  now  the  night  when  he  had 
not  gone  to  sleep  the  worse  for  licjuor,  so  that  he  could  not  remember  till 
now  the  morning  when  he  had  waked  fresh  and  pure  and  able  to  enjoy. 


64  EASTER. 

Not  till  now,  when  some  apostle  of  the  Word  of  God  had  made  him 
fling  oft'  that  old  bondage  and  enabled  him  in  that  one  detail  of  life,  to 
see,  and  feel,  and  hear,  and  understand.  Now  that  man,  till  that  miracle 
was  wrought,  did  not  know  what  the  word  morning  meant.  His  defi- 
nition of  it  was  inadequate.  His  sense  of  it  was  all  incomplete.  If  he 
had  talked  with  a  true  artist  about  it,  or  a  simple  child,  or  a  pure 
woman,  he  would  not  have  known  what  the  words  meant  w^hich  they 
used.  He  would  have  said  they  were  talking  rhetoric,  that  they  were 
exaggerating,  "  that  they  were  lying  to  him."  He  would  always  have 
said  this,  till  the  blessed  moment  when  he  was  born  again  so  that  he 
could  see  for  himself,  and  hear  and  know  and  understand.  And  that 
fatuity  and  ignorance  is  only  a  little  type  or  illustration,  in  a  single  de- 
tail, of  our  inability  from  ignorance  to  use  the  word  Life  at  all,  in  the 
sense  in  which  Jesus  used  it,  until  and  unless  we  have  boldly  entered  in- 
to Life,  as  he  said  to  the  young  gentleman  of  Edom.  There  is  no 
"  book  of  the  opera  "  of  Life  which  will  tell  you  how  charming  it  is  to 
see  it.  There  is  no  transparency  in  front  of  the  show,  which  will  answer 
the  purpose  for  you  to  look  upon.  You  must  push  the  door  open  and 
go  in.  There  is  no  way  in  which  you  can  read  the  play,  and  feel  it  and 
understand  it,  as  if  you  had  been  one  of  the  actors.  No  !  It  is  to  no 
such  sham  or  imitation  that  your  Father  invites  you.  "  Here  is  my 
home,"  he  says,  "  come  into  my  house."  "  Here  is  my  feast,"  he  says, 
"  come  sit  at  my  feast."  "  Here  is  Life  Eternal.  Oh,  my  children, 
because  you  are  my  children,  Live  w^hile  you  live." 

That  is  what  God  says  to  us,  by  every  voice  of  his.  It  is  what  he 
says  this  day,  of  all  days,  by  his  son.  Well  Beloved.  What  we  say,  is 
of  little  consequence.  But  what  we  determine  and  do,  is  of  great  con- 
sequence to  ourselves,  if  to  nobody  beside  !  It  is  as  nothing  to  us 
whether  we  see  the  risen  Saviour  or  not.  Many  who  did  see  him  did 
not  profit  by  what  they  saw.  It  is  as  nothing  to  us,  w^hether  we  believe 
he  were  Son  of  God,  if  all  this  time  w^e  are  acting  as  if  we  were  not 
God's  children.  To  state  this  in  the  familiar  words  of  the  Old  Theology, 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  Baptist  preachers  a  few  weeks  since 
described  the  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ,  with  intense  earnestness, 
and  therefore  intense  power.  Then,  to  the  great  assembly,  which  fol- 
lowed him  eagerly  in  his  demonstration  that  God  was  in  the  flesh — 


EASTER.  65 

speaking  to  the  world  by  Christ  Jesus — he  said,  "  This  is  nothing  to 
you  unless  you  dare  say  this  day  that  God  is  Incarnate  in  you."  Per- 
fectly true  !  [JThe  Resurrection  miracle  is  nothing  to  you  and  me,  if  it  is 
only  an  event  of  eighteen  centuries  by-gone.  Unless  we  can  Live  the 
Immortal  Life,  unless  we  can  receive  God  to  his  own  Home  in  these 
Hearts  of  ours,  the  texts  are  nothing  to  us  unless  these  daily  lives 
illustrate  them.  Parable  is  nothing  unless  the  Good  Samaritan  bends 
in  these  streets  over  the  bleeding  traveller ;  unless  in  your  home,  the 
tender  father  can  receive  the  returning  prodigal !  For  all  that  wealth  or 
miracle,  of  precept  and  of  example  was  never  lived  out,  merely  that  we 
might  have  one  more  frieze  of  old-time  ornament  to  be  sculptured  on  the 
upper  walls  of  our  temples.  Miracle  was  wrought,  parable  invented, 
sermon  preached,  yes,  and  the  cross  was  borne,  that  this  world  might  be 
lifted  from  the  groveling  existence  of  brutes  to  the  nobler  life  of  men  : 
that  you  and  I,  that  he  and  she,  that  all  men  everywhere  might  truly 
Live !  And  the  Festival  of  to-day,  if  it  is  anything  but  a  tawdry  lie, 
or  the  Great  Marvel  which  it  celebrates,  if  it  is  anything  but  an  inex- 
plicable curiosity  of  history,  mean  both  alike,  that  you  and  I  are 
pledged  anew  to-day,  and  covenant  anew  to-day,  that  for  us  we  will 
live  the  life  of  the  Living  children  of  a  Living  God. 

To  cite  another  word  from  another  of  the  g^eat  preachers,  our  neigh- 
bor Mr.  John  Weiss : 

"It  is  one  thing  to  believe  in  immortalit}-.  It  is  quite  another  thing 
to  live  as  an  immortal." 

This  pledge  means  for  a  church,  that  is  for  an  organization  of  Christ- 
ian men  and  women,  that  it  will  do  what  God  has  to  do,  in  the  place 
where  he  has  planted  it.  To  say  it  would  do  what  Christ  would  have 
done,  is  only  an  eflbrt  to  make  the  other  statement  more  real.  It  is  his 
representative.  It  claims  to  be  God's  own  beloved  child.  This  church 
because  its  Easter  Festival  is  real  undertakes  this  day  in  the  echoes  of 
its  music,  and  before  its  flowers  have  withered,  to  comfort  those  that 
mourn,  to  heal  those  that  are  broken-hearted,  to  open  the  eyes  that  arc 
blind,  and  to  speak  God's  love  to  those  who  have  not  heard  it,  to  pro- 
claim glad  tidings  indeed,  to  the  poor. 

And  each  child  of  God  here,  immortal,  never-<lying,  begins  a  new 
life  to-day.     It  is  to  be  a  life  which  enjoys  every  blessing  of  God's  love. 

It  is  to  be  a  life  which  trusts  in  his  infinite  power. 


66  E  ASTER . 

It  is  to  be  a  life  which  treads  under  foot  and  despises  the  rags  of 
Cerement  which  the  Earth  has  worn. 

It  is  to  be  a  life  which  spends  and  is  spent,  in  the  service  of  Truth, 
Holiness,  and  Love. 

It  is  to  be  a  life  in  which  each  man  lives  for  each  other  man,  because 
each  man  lives  for  the  purpose  of  the  Living  God. 

It  is  a  life,  therefore,  which  with  every  new  day,  is  new  born.  From 
every  night's  sleep  it  starts  as  from  an  Easter  Sepulchre.  With  every 
jiew  day's  opportunities,  it  steps  forward  as  serene  and  cheerful  as  an 
archangel  to  his  mission.  Why  worry  one's  self  .about  the  past,  about  a 
tomb.''  Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead ?  He  is  not  here.  lie 
is  Risen !    M 


GOOD   FROM   EVIL. 


BY  JOHN    STERLING. 

Thou  God,  so  rulest ;  such  the  plan 
Of  endless  change,  evolving  good. 

Thou  leadest  thus  desponding  man 
With  hope  on  all  thy  works  to  brootl. 

In  all  to  see  an  endless  will 
For  all  educing  light  and  life. 

The  blessings  born  from  seeming  ill 
And  peace  the  end  assured  of  strife. 

« 

So  thou  in  rne,  O  God  !  ordain 

That  quiet  faith  and  gladness  pure 

O'er  all  convulsions  past  may  reign. 

And  root  my  soul  in  Thee  secure. 

So  haggard  wrecks  of  former  woe 
Beneath  thy  radiant  light  may  shine. 

And  charmed  to  steadfast  being  show 
O'er  all  their  havoc  bliss  ilivine  I 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    LIFE, 


I  TRIED  last  Sunday  to  state  in  words  the  relation,  so  close,  of  all 
Spiritual  Being  and  all  Spiritual  Life.  Words  stumble  and  break 
down  in  the  etibrt.  But  every  Religious  service  is  one  eftbrt  more 
to  express  in  some  way  man's  certainty  of  his  hold  on  God,  and  this  is 
man's  certainty  that  his  own  Life  is  allied  to  the  Life  of  the  Universe. 

Because  this  is  so,  Religious  service  fails,  or  is  apt  to  fail,  when  it 
occupies  itself  Avith  things  which  are  not  alive.  Of  course  the  eflbrt  is, 
to  make  these  things  the  medium  for  expressing  to  God  what  man 
would  say.  Thus  the  shepherd  in  Hebron,  Abraham's  neighbor,  has  a 
beautiful  lamb  or  sheep,  and  he  knovs^s  that  from  the  love  of  God  and 
his  present  care  come  flock,  and  grass  which  feeds  the  flock,  and  dew 
and  rain  which  water  the  grass,  and  the  daily  sunshine  which  makes 
the  whole  rejoice.  Because  he  knows  this,  and  because  he  is  grateful, 
he  brings  to  the  altar  this  pet  lamb  and  offers  it  for  his  sacrifice.  It  is 
exactly  as  the  children  in  a  great  school  might  select  the  best  drawings 
which  they  had  made,  or  perhaps  even  write  some  copies  of  verses,  to 
send  to  the  benefactor  who  has  endow^ed  the  school  and  has  given  them 
power  to  write  or  to  draw  so  well.  Such  is  the  origin  of  sacrifice  as  a 
method  or  form  of  worship.  But,  as  time  goes  on,  as  most  men  do 
something  else  than  thus  take  care  of  sheep  or  oxen,  as  in  more  savage 
days  all  men  did,  the  thing  comes  between  the  child  and  his  Father. 
The  sacrifice  does  not  express  life.  It  rather  expresses  death,  and  so 
that  form  of  worship  gives  way.  You  and  I  would  say  the  same  thing 
of  the  use  of  incense  in  worship.  The  curling  smoke  and  the  pervading 
odor,  in  their  dav  seemed  to  express  and  so  did  express  what  Mr.  Mont- 
gomery calls 

"  The  motion  of  a  hidden  fire 
That  trembles  in  the  breast." 

So  far  and  so  long  was  the  use  of  incense  a  fit  help  in  worship,  and  for 

(68) 


THK    MIRACI-E    OK    MFK.  69 

some  people  it  is  so  now.  But  for  others,  the  mechanism  of  the  censer, 
the  swinging  of  the  box,  the  providing  the  gums,  are  but  a  material 
matter,  and  the  rite  is  worthless.  Spoken  language  in  worship  cannot 
pretend  to  be  free  from  the  same  difficulty.  The  vibration  of  the  air, 
which  we  call  sound,  is  after  all  a  movement  of  matter.  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  ^hat  words,  hymns,  liturgies  and  rituals  which  once  lived, 
\\  hich  expressed  the  living  love  of  the  living  child  for  the  living  God, 
shall  become  dead  because  they  become  mechanical.  Mr.  Edison 
would  make  for  us  a  phonograph  which  could  be  run  by  clock-work 
and  would  repeat  for  us  the  whole  Greek  liturgy  of  St.  Andrew  or  St. 
James,  though  there  were  not  a  child  of  God  within  a  hundred  miles. 
And  I  am  afraid  that  you  and  I  have  heard  what  were  called  prayers, 
uttered  by  the  subtler  mechanism  of  the  human  Ups,  but  which  ex- 
pressed as  little  of  that  living  love  of  a  living  child  for  a  living  Father. 
And  so  of  the  central  place  which  music  occupies  in  worship.  Music 
holds  that  central  place  because  it  is  infinite  on  one  side,  and  finite  on 
the  other ;  because  it  is  so  far  indefinite  in  the  aspiration  which  it  ex- 
presses ;  because  each  waiting  soul  can  use  it  almost  as  he  will.  From 
the  same  strains  one  life  takes  comfort,  one  takes  hope,  one  takes  in- 
struction. But  music  also  depends  upon  these  vibrations  of  the  air.  and 
from  godless  lips  and  godless  hearts  and  godless  lives,  music  also  is 
but  a  bit  of  the  mechanism  of  things. 

Now  the  business  of  public  worship  as  it  is  the  business  of  private 
prayer  and  communion  is  to  make  life  more  alive.  When  we  come 
here,  or  when  we  go  into  the  closet  to  pray,  it  is  that  the  life  within  us 
may  be  stronger  to  control  this  mechanism  of  things.  That  is  to  say. 
Religion  must  magnify  the  soul  which  rules,  rather  than  t'lc  b<Kly  wliich 
obeys,  must  turn  to  the  God  who  creates  whenever  slie  speaks  of  tlie 
world  which  is  created.  Becau.se  language  is  material,  it  is  easier  to 
look  the  other  way,  and  to  do  the  other  tiling.  It  is  easier  for  men  to 
lrH)k  on  the  dust,  from  which  God  made  them,  and  in  their  vulgar  way  to 
talk  to  death  and  decay.  I  do  not  know  what  else  fill.s  literature  with  the 
cheap  sensation  which  is  always  produced  by  the  coarsest  description 
of  a  death-bed.  I  do  not  know  why  el.se  even  the  writers  for  children 
gloat  over  the  tales  of  sickness  and  other  failures  of  the  flesh.  Fo,-  t'K- 
uses  of  such  writers  a  dying  dog  seems  better  than  a  li\  ing  lion.      A  .,! 


7©  EASTER. 

just  as  the  hateful  gossip  of  a  village  goes  round  delighted  if  she  can 
tell  you  of  the  ravages  of  a  new  epidemic,  and  is  fairly  balked  when 
you  can  prove  to  her  that  the  sufferers  have  recovered,  so  even  the  pul- 
pit and  the  other  voices  of  the  church  sink  into  the  carnal  habit  of  whin- 
ing about  sin  and  failure  and  misery,  about  sickness  and  death,  about 
disease  of  body,  mind  and  soul  with  a  kind  of  gusto  of  delight.  As  if 
innocence,  courage,  and  virtue,  faith,  hope  and  love  were  not  the  essential 
and  central  subjects  of  their  lessons,  to  which  lapse  and  disease  are  only 
incidental  and  secondaiy  !  In  a  sectarian  newspaper  the  other  day  I 
saw  a  book  criticised  as  unchristian,  because  its  effort  was  only  to  show 
the  Christian  victories  of  faith  and  hope  and  love.  It  seemed,  forsooth, 
that  it  ought  to  have  told  how  wretched  its  hero  was  before  he  was  con- 
verted, and  from  what  depths  of  misery  Christ  had  saved  him.  Then, 
and  only  then,  according  to  this  critic,  would  it  have  a  truly  religious 
savor. 

Against  all  this  heathenism  and  earth  worship.  Easter,  the  Holiday 
of  Life,  makes  the  annual  protest ;  against  the  habit  of  considering  the 
machinery  ;  against  the  microscopic  analysis  which  is  satisfied  with 
grovelling  in  the  dust ;  against  the  morbid  pursuit  of  studying  disease  in- 
stead of  health  ;  against  the  cloister  notion  that  tears  are  more  virtuous 
than  smiles.  Easter  day  reminds  us  that  the  Son  of  Man  uas  Son  of 
God  as  well.  It  reminds  us  that  as  God's  children  zue  have  privilege  of 
godly  life  and  godly  communion.  .It  lifts  us  for  the  day.  it  would  fain 
lift:  us  for  the  year,  from  dwelling  among  the  graves. 

The  last  account  given  of  the  successive  steps  in  the  history  of  man's 
body,  suggests  that  the  ancestor  of  all  men  now  living  was  probably  a 
Marine  Ascidian,  which  is  to  say  a  sea-worm,  living  in  an  amphibious 
life  on  the  edge  of  the  sea,  now  washed  by  the  rising  tide,  and  then  left 
to  try  experiments  with  air.  It  is  supposed  that  the  frame  of  man,  by 
successive  improvements  and  gradations,  has  been  enlarged  and  uplifted 
by  that  Power  which  controls  the  world,  till  now  man  stands  erect 

"And  is  able  to  look  upon  the  heavens." 

Grant  that  this  is  so.  At  the  beginning  of  this  career  the  sea- worm 
which  you  say  was  our  ancestor  was  alive.      There  was  that  life  which 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    I.IFB.  7 1 

tnahled  him  to  wish,  to  strive,  and  within  the  limits  of  his  heing  to  do 
what  he  chose.  Life.  will,  choice,  desire.  These  did  not  come  to  him 
rom  the  tides.  These  were  no  product  of  his  daily  food.  They  en- 
:.bled  him  in  his  poor  way  to  use  the  tides,  and  to  purvey  for  his  sub- 
sistence. Thev  made  him  in  his  wav.  lord  of  the  earth,  the  sea.  and  of 
mere  things.  And  all  your  chemistry  and  all  vour  analvsis  will  never 
show  you  what  this  Life  is,  w^hich  rules  over  things,  and  rules  them  with 
the  absolute  empire  which  every  day  is  witness  to.  Such  are  the  little 
tvpes  of  Life's  victor}*.  Even  the  opening  of  these  flowers  is  such  a 
type  of  it ;  tlie  new  carol  of  the  liirds  of  spring  is  a  type  of  it ;  the  green 
on  the  hill-side  is  a  type  of  it.  Life,  which  is  inexplicable  to  the 
student  of  things,  life,  which  controls  and  uses  things,  is  asserted  in  all 
tliese  spring-time  miracles.  And  when  one  looks  at  the  noblest  victories 
of  all.  as  when  one  sees  St.  Vincent  working  at  the  gallev  oar  that  he 
may  help  the  poor  slaves  who  are  chained  at  his  side,  when  one  sees 
Ridley  dying  at  the  stake  that  other  men  may  know  what  is  the  truth 
for  which  he  dies.  nay,Iwhenever  one  reads  anything  noble,  glad,  and 
great  in  the  history  of  the  world,  he  finds  another  of  the  victories  which 
Easter  morning  commemorates.  The  victory  of  the  soul  over  matter. 
The  sway  of  the  Spirit  over  things.  The  victory  of  Life  over  things 
which  iai.st  and  decay.  The  victory  of  Life  which  is  Eternal  over  Death, 
which  is  only  an  aspect  of  Time  and  a  Delusion. 

The  joyous  celebration  of  Easter  is  not  simply  the  commemoration  of 
the  rolling  away  of  the  rock  from  the  Sepulchre.  It  is  the  celebration 
of  every  triumph  of  the  Eternal  and  Infinite  soul  of  man.'  A  celebration, 
then,  well  worth  ciierishing  in  an  age  which  is  a  little  too  proud  of  its 
success  in  raking  over  dust  heaps,  and  putting  labels  on  the  treasures  it 
finds  in  tnem.  If  vye  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  celebration  it  will  help 
us,  as  I  belieyc  George  Herbert  says,  to  look  upward  more  in  all  this 
new-born  year  and  to  look  downward  less.  It  will  tempt  us  in  the 
midst  of  our  study  of  things  and  our  analysis  of  tlieir  forms,  to  study  even 
with  more  eagerness  tlie  history  of  man,  and  tlje  triumphs  over  tlungs  ot 
the  living  soul,  tlie  child  of  God.  Of  coiu'se  vvc  sliall  be  curious  about 
God's  handivyork,  curious  about  the  palace  in  w  ii.h  man  tlie  immortal 
lives.  But  unless  we  are  fools,  our  interest  in  the  palace,  in  its  carvings, 
its  fret  work,  its  pictures  or  its  dirt  and  ashes  will  not  so  engross  us. 


■JZ  EASTKR. 

but  we  .sliall  look  to  see  and  listen  to  hear  if  he  who  inhabits  the  palace, 
if  the  So's-ereiepi,  or  some  prince  of  the  blood  Royal,  should  appear."^ 

It  is,  for  instance,  a  fascinating  study  to  trace  along  the  history  and  the 
rival  fortunes  of  the  Races  of  Men  ;  how  certain  laws  of  climate  or  of 
blood  seem  to  have  compelled  the  Roman  to  his  destiny,  the  Greek  to 
his,  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  his.  But  no  one  studies  those  intricacies 
really,  who  does  not  acknowledge  that  right  across  their  currents,  the 
Omnipotent  Life  of  some  infinite  child  of  God  comes  boldly  in,  setting 
up  here,  pulling  down  there,  and  creating  history.  We  prattle  about 
this  Race  which  has  achieved  this,  and  that  Race  which  has  achieved 
that,  and  then  are  forced  to  confess  that  one  man,  such  a  man  as  Abra- 
ham, takes  the  whole  destiny  of  what  we  call  a  Race,  and  uses  it  as  a 
boy  uses  a  plaything.  He  diverts  it  from  the  course  in  which  it  was  mov- 
ing, and  bids  the  history  of  the  world  turn  another  way.  In  the  midst 
of  a  luxurious  physical  and  sensual  civilizaticni.  close  to  the  region 
where  tradition  and  theoiy  imply  that  civilization  began,  this  Abraham 
is  born  in  a  race  of  men,  all  whose  tendencies  are  beastly.  That  is,  they 
are  governed  through  and  through  by  physical  appetite.  Combine  the 
lowest  lust  of  Vienna  or  Calcutta  to-day,  with  the  most  wretched  sensu- 
ality of  the  tribes  of  the  Amazon,  and  yovn-  picture  is  not  black  enoijgh 
to  represent  that  nature-worship.  In  the  midst  of  it  this  one  man,  Abra- 
ham, breaks  away.  None  of  it  for  him  I  He  has  spoken  to  the  Unseen 
Force  who  rules  this  universe.  And  that  Force  has  spoken  to  him.  He 
will  not  stay  and  no  family  of  his  shall  stay  in  such  filth  of  debauchery. 
Westward  !  to  the  land  God  shall  show  him.  The  purpose  it  is.  the  de- 
termination it  is,  of  one  man.  He  will  leave  them  and  he  will  open 
another  volume  of  history,  with  another  basis  and  another  destiny. 
Westward  he  marches.  He  sets  up  his  altar  and  pitches  his  tent.  And 
from  that  determination  of  his,  that  resolution  made  with  prayer  and 
held  to  by  a  determined  will,  the  after  history  of  the  whole  world,  as  it 
proves,  proceeds.  From  that  determination  comes  the  purer  life  and 
nobler  being  of  a  race  of  men  who  are  not  governed  by  appetite,  but  by 
the  will  of  the  unseen  God.  From  that  race  of  meti  proceed,  the  laws 
and  institutions  which  at  this  hour  underlie  the  civilization  of  the  vic- 
torious and  successful  half  of  the  world.  All  because  one  man,  conscious 
of  God's  being,  obeyed  God's  law  as  he  understood  it.     The  will  of  that 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    LIFE.  73 

man,  the  choice  of  that  man,  the  determination  of  that  man,  say  simply 
the  Life  of  that  man  so  prevailed.  The  Holiday  of  to-day  commemo- 
rates such  victories. 

Such  decision,  determination,  personal  power  is  it  which  creates  the 
Christian  civilization  of  all  our  half  the  world.  America  once  discov- 
ered, even'  fool  could  say  that  the  voyage  was  easy.  America  once 
discovered,  everv  Vespucius,  ever}^  Pinzon,  every  Cabot  was  willing  to 
make  new  vovages  to  the  land  they  knew  was  there.  No  rebellious 
crews  now  !  No  wish  tct  turn  back  to  Egypt  after  the  Promised  Land 
has  been  found.  It  is  just  as  now  every  invention  has  a  hundred  pirates. 
A  man  cannot  write  a  ballad,  but  he  shall  start  a  dozen  parodies.  But 
the  first  Columbus !  Ah  !  there  is  one  of  the  victories  of  Life.  It  is 
the  resolute  determination  of  a  child  of  God  which  sends  him  forward. 
It  is  not  climate  that  makes  him.  It  is  not  race  that  compels  him  nor 
destiny.  He  is  his  own  destiny.  He  sees  through  all  the  westward 
fogs.  He  determines.  He  will  carry  through.  Failure  here,  failure 
there,  this  rebuH",  that  rebuH", — what  are  they  to  an  Infinite  child  of 
an  Infinite  God.''  This  thing  must  be  done,  shall  be  done.  When  the 
faith  and  will  of  such  a  man  speak  thus,  why,  the  thing  is  done.  The 
oceans  give  a  pathway  to  such  a  determination  and  the  new  world  is 
thrown  open  to  men  who  know  how  to  use  it.  A  victory  of  life  over 
things,  over  physical  laws,  over  what  men  call  fate  or  destiny  ! 

Yes,  and  these  achievements  are  only  two  little  parts  of  tlie  great 
achievement  of  history,  of  the  great  central  day  of  which  this  day  is  the 
anniversary.  The  great  event  of  history  is  in  the  great  miracle  of  Life  : 
when  to  a  paralyzed  world  Jesus  Christ  said,  "  Take  up  your  bed  and 
walk,"  and  at  his  voice  that  world  obeyed.  [The  victory  of  life  over 
death  !  Whv  to  speak  of  the  mere  forms  of  physical  being,  it  seems 
thai  the  Roman  Empire,  whos.- eagles  flaunted  in  a  dying  Saviour's  face, 
whose  soldiers  nailed  his  body  to  the  cross,  was  at  that  very  instant  dying 
.out  in  its  own  lusts.  It  seems  that  in  the  direct  result  of  the  chosen  law- 
lessness of  its  being,  the  people  were  dying  out  of  it.  because,  with  its 
eyes  open,  it  preferred  to  live  for  the  flesh  and  sense,  and  not  to  live  by 
the  spirit  and  the  truth.  It  seems  there  were  fewer  men  and  women  in 
each  century  than  in  the  century  before.      It  was  to  sucli  physical  death 


74  KASTEK. 

as  that  that  Jesus  Christ  spoke  the  word  of  more  abundant  life.  And 
that  is  only  one  illustration.  It  was  to  such  cruelty  as  permitted  parents 
to  kill  their  own  children  if  they  were  in  the  way,  it  was  to  such  ago- 
nies ot  bleeding  hearts  as  were  implied  in  the  worst  conceivable  system 
of  slavery,  it  was  to  such  lust  in  Rome  and  Athens  and  Alexandria  as 
repeated  the  beastly  orgies  from  which  Abraham  turned  in  Ur  of  the 
CI  aldees.  it  was  from  these  that  Jesus  Christ  bade  the  world  turn  and 
Live;  and  the  world,  hearing  him,  obeyed.  It  was  from  the  placid 
satisfaction  in  which  even  the  Ciceros  and  the  Aureliuses  said,  as  the 
Platos  and  even  the  Socrates  of  another  generation  said,  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  were  to  be  rated  as  the  brutes,  with  lives  like  theirs, 
and  with  rights  like  theirs  and  with  deaths  like  theirs,  that  Jesus  Christ 
called  noble  and  plebeian  alike,  and  compelled  each  to  own  that  the 
other  was  his  brother  and  of  the  same  life-blood. 

Yes,  and  such  changes  in  habit,  in  thought  and  in  society  are  only 
the  faint  dawn  of  the  day.  Even  in  our  time,  though  we  see  a  world 
which  with  the  lip  confesses  his  empire,  we  know  how  hollow  is  much 
of  the  confession.  "  This  people  honoreth  me  with  their  tongue,  but 
their  heart  is  far  from  me."  We  know  how  in  Christian  Paris,  in 
Christian  London,  in  Christian  New  York,  in  Christian  Boston,  there  is 
heathenism,  which,  in  its  horrid  way  gives  us  the  suggestions  by  which 
we  can  study  that  more  terrible  heathenism  of  Athens  and  Rome  and 
Alexandria.  Still  we  have  now^  no  fear  of  the  issue..  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  reconstruction  to  be  done,  but  the  victory  is  sure,  and  we  know 
it.  We  know  what  Cicero  and  Aurelius  did  not  know,  that  in  this 
world,  God's  Kingdom  steadily  comes.  We  know  that  this  Easter  day 
shines  on  a  nobler  world  than  that  of  a  centurv  ago.  We  know  that  that 
Easter  was  brighter  than  that  of  the  century  before.  We  know^  we  need 
no  demonstration,  that  our  children's  children,  a  century  hence,  will 
look  back  on  the  Christian  civilization  of  to-day,  amazed  indeed,  that  we 
should  think  it  worthy  of  congratulation. 

And  all  this  is  the  victory  of  Life — yes,  of  one  Life.  It  is  the  victory 
of  him  who  is  Lord  of  Life,  of  whom  that  title  is  the  highest  title  and 
the  proper  name.  It  is  not  in  any  physical  law  of  gulf  streams,  of  tidal 
currents,  of  simooms,  of  the  world's  attractions  in  its  orbit,  or  of  the 
perturbations   in   its  planetary  career  that  such  changes  come.     They 


THE    MIRACKK    OF    LIFE.  75 

are  the  victories  of  the  Spirit.  They  are  the  conquests  of  Life.  Into 
this  world  came  that  Son  of  God,  who  knew  God  most  completely. 

And  he  said,  "  I  have  come  that  this  world  might  have  life,  and 
might    have  it  abundantly." 

And  he  lived,  and  he  died,  and  this  day  he  rose  again. 

Because  he  lived,  this  world  begins  to  live  truly.  And  of  its  Spirit- 
ual birth  this  day  is  the  anniversary  l_2i 


EASTER    DAY. 

BY    REV.    JOHN    KEBLK. 

"  And  as  they  were  afraid,  and  bowed  down  their  faces  to  the  earth,  they  said  unto  them. 
Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead?     He  is  not  here,  but  is  risen." — ST.  LUKK,  xxiv.  5,  6. 

Oh  (hi)-  of  days  I    shall  hearts  set  tree 
No  ■•  minstrel  rapture"  find  for  thee? 
.  Thou  art  the  sun  of  other  davs, — 
Thev  sliine  by  giving  back  thy  rays. 

Enthroned  in  thy  sovereign  sphere 
Thou  shed'st  thy  light  on  all  the  year  ; 
Sundays  by  thee  more  glorious  break, 
An  Easter  Day  in  every  week  ; 

And  week-days,  following  in  their  train, 
The  fulness  of  thy  blessing  gain. 
Till  all.  both  resting  and  employ. 
Be  one  Lord's  day  of  holy  joy. 

Then  wake,  my  soul,  to  high  desires, 
»     Antl  earlier  light  thine  altar  fires ; 
The  world  some  hours  is  on  her  way, 
jSlor  thinks  on  thee,  thou  blessed  day; 

Or  if  she  tliink,  it  is  in  scorn  ; 
The  vernal  light  of  Easter  morn 
To  her  dark  gaze  no  brighter  seems 
'J'han  Reason's  on  the  Law's  jxde  beams. 
(76) 


KASTEK    DAY.  77 

''  Where  is  vour  Lord?  "    she  scornful  asks  ; 
•'  Where  is  his  hire?     We  know'  his  tasks. 

Sons  of  a  King  ye  boast  to  l)e  : 

Let  lis  vour  cro^vns  and  treasures  see." 

We  in  the  words  of  truth  reply. 
(An  angel  brought  them  from  the  sky.) 
"  Our  crown,  our  treasure,  is  not  here, — 
'T  is  stored  above  the  highest  sphere  : 

"  Methinks  your  wisdom  guides  amiss, 
To  .seek  on  earth  a  Christian's  bliss  ; 
We  watch  not  now^  the  lifeless  stone'; 
Our  onlv  Lord  is  risen  and  gone." 

Yet  even  the  lifeless  stone  is  dear. 
For  thoughts  of  him  who  late  lay  here  ; 
And  the  base  world,  now  Christ  has  died, 
Ennobled  is,  and  glorified. 

No  more  a  charnel-house,  to  fence 

The  relics  of  lost  innocence. 

A  vault  of  ruin  and  decay  ; — 

The  imprisoning  stone  is  rolled  away  ; 

'T  is  now  a  cell,  where  angels  use 
To  come  and  go  with  heavenly  news. 
And  in  the  ears  of  mourners  say. 
"  Come,  see  the  place  where  Jesus  lav  ;  " 

'T  is  now  a  fane,  where  Love  can  find 
Chri.st  everywhere  embalmed  antl  shrined ; 
Aye  gathering  up  memorials  sweet. 
Where'er  she  sets  her  duteous  feet. 


78 


Oh  !  joy  to  Mary  first  allowed. 
When  roused  from  weeping  o'er  his  sliroudf 
By  his  own  calm,  soul-soothing  tone, 
Breathing  lier  name  as  still  his  own  ! 

Joy  to  the  faithful  three  renewed, 
As  their  glad  errand  they  pursued  ! 
Happy,  who  so  Christ's  word  convey, 
That  he  may  meet  them  on  their  way  ! 

So  is  it  still  to  holy  tears, 
In  lonely  hours,  Christ  risen  appears ; 
In  social  hours  who  Christ  would  see, 
Must  turn  all  tasks  to  Charity. 


THE   SUN    OF    RIGHTEOUSNESS, 


"We  have  passed  from  death  unto  life." — I.  JOHN,  iii,  14. 

It  is  this  change  in  this  passage  for  which  the  Festival  of  to-day 
rejoices.  The  bondage  of  the  tomb  is  broken,  yes,  and  a  thousand  other 
chains  as  heavy.  There  are  other  prisons  thrown  open  at  a  Master's 
touch.  A  thousand  fountains  flow  at  the  stroke  of  his  rod.  And  for 
all  this  the  world  rejoices. 

What  the  change  is,  which  his  word  and  life  bring  on  men,  does  not 
appear  till  we  trace  it  in  some  contrast,  comparing  the  two  careers,  that 
of  a  man  who  chooses  to  drink  Immmortality  at  the  Fountain  of  Life, 
against  him  who  only  looks  at  the  fountain  as  it  runs,  plays  a  minute, 
perhaps,  with  the  bubbles,  and  then  marches  on  across  a  desert  with 
the  supplies  in  his  own  water-bottles,  satisfied  with  his  own  provision 
for  the  day.  They  paint  pictures  sometimes,  where  the  composition 
shows  a  palace  of  luxury  on  one  side  and  a  hovel  of  misery  on  the 
other.  The  painter  tries  to  contrast  the  loveliness  of  skillful  gardening 
against  the  tangle  of  the  sluggard's  desert  which  jackals  and  foxes  have 
devoured.  But  the  contrast  is  worse  than  that,  more  sharp  and  pathetic, 
between  the  life,  were  it  only  of  a  twelve-month,  of  the  man  who  at  some 
season  of  determination  chose  Life,  which  decreed  to  be  called  Life, 
chose  Life  infinite,  or  as  the  Bible  says,  "  Life  abundant,"  or  "  Life 
eternal,"  against  the  other  man  who  chose  Life  merely  for  its  good 
dinners  and  suppers,  for  its  much  money,  or  perhaps  its  fine  clothes :  of 
the  man  whose  resolves  did  not  have  in  them  the  <letermination  to  de- 
serve the  girl  he  loved,  or  to  rise  to  the  knowledge  he  honored,  or  to 
serve  the  world  in  which  he  lived.  I  have  pleased  myself  sometimes,  by 
imagining  the  scene  and  meeting  at  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  say  fifteen  years 
after  the  crucifixion,  when  Simon  Peter  and  John,  son  of  Zebedee,  might 
meet  there  often  bv  ajX)Stolic  wanderings.     There  is  a  good  theme  for 

(79) 


8o  EASTKK. 

a  story,  and  I  will  give  the  hint  to  any  of  my  friends  of  the  Ladies' 
Commission  or  the  Sunday  School,  who  would  like  to  adventure  in  that 
line  of  narrative.  Let  these  two  apostles  meet  there  some  fisherman  ot 
their  own  age,  whose  name  never  found  itself  in  any  gospel,  has  never 
been  repeated  for  the  honor  of  a  cathedral,  has  never  been  prized  and 
remembered  by  the  founders  of  a  city  :  some  Obed  or  Micaiah  or  Nebat, 
who  when  in  the  beginning,  the  Master  of  Life  came  down  the  lake  and 
said,  "  Follow  me,"  had  listened  and  determined  that  he  would  not 
follow.  If  these  fools,  Andrew  and  Simon,  John  and  James,  and 
Philip  and  the  rest,  the  best  fishermen  on  the  shore,  if  they  chose  to  go 
off  and  leave  their  business,  so  much  the  worse  for  them,  and  so  much  the 
better  for  him.  He  will  supply  their  customers,  and  will  step  into  their 
shoes.  He  did  start  at  the  Master's  eagerness.  He  listened,  and  then 
went  back  to  his  fishing !  Such  a  man,  day  after  day,  would  justify 
to  himself  his  own  refusal  and  w^ould  be  sure  at  last  that  he  had 
done  the  right  thing.  Peter  and  Andrew,  James  and  John  had  left 
their  boats  and  had  done  what  the  Master  bade  them.  Here  were  the 
boats  left  on  the  lake  ;  here  was  all  their  share  in  the  neglected  business. 
How  easily  a  man  who  had  been  hard  enough  to  resist  the  words  ot 
Christ  would  persuade  himself  that  that  was  a  godsend  which  relieved 
him  of  such  rivals.  He  would  now  build  up  a  large  trade  with  the 
garrison  at  Tiberias,  having  quite  the  monopoly  of  the  supply  of  the 
port.     But  he  must  work  quick,  for  the  enthusiasts  will  be  back  again. 

No !  the  enthusiasts  do  not  come  back.  Year  by  year  passes  and 
they  do  not  come  back  for  more  than  a  passing  visit.  And  he,  every 
day,  in  these  years,  makes  his  trip,  makes  his  catch,  opens  and  cleans 
his  fish,  goes  to  the  garrison  quartermaster  with  those  that  suit  the 
Roman  taste,  and  then  peddles  out  what  are  left  here  at  home  to  the 
villagers. 

At  some  one  of  these  passing  visits  of  John  the  beloved,  and  of  Peter, 
who  used  to  be  such  a  leader  in  the  little  fleet  of  boats,  some  neighbor 
makes  a  party  for  them  and  the  three  old  comrades  meet  together.  It  is 
fifteen  years  since  they  parted.  Peter  is  not  so  arbitrary  as  he  was,  and 
he  does  not  look  a  day  older  than  he  did.  He  is  friendly,  cheerful,  and 
tries  to  recall  old  times.  John  does  look  older.  Why,  he  was  nothing  but 
a  boy  when  they  went  away.  He  is  perhaps  more  reserved  now,  but 
still  we  cannot  say  "  reserved  "  of  a  person  so  sympathetic,  who  has  so 


THE    SUN    OF    RIGHTEOUSNESS.  OI 

much  to  tell  of  all  sorts  of  men,  and  enters  so  heartily  into  the  secrets  of 
every  life. 

Imagine  the  Christian  courtesy  and  readiness  with  which  the  two 
apostles  recall  the  past  with  their  old  companion.  How  they  promise 
to  try  the  boat  with  him  in  the  morning  and  see  if  their  hands  have  lost 
their  old  skill.  How  they  tell  him  of  their  adventures  by  sea  and  land  in 
other  parts  of  the  world  and  of  men's  customs  there.  But  you  will 
have  to  imagine  at  the  same  time  the  contrast,  as  between  night  and 
day,  between  the  probable  range  of  his  mind,  his  interests,  nay,  his  loves 
and  his  hope,  and  theirs.  They  are  partners  in  the  Universe,  and 
fellow-laborers  with  God.  He  is  the  ijwner  of  one  or  two  boats,  and 
trades  with  Tiberias  in  fish.  They  have  enlarged  life  so  much  since 
those  early  days,  that  it  is  like  coming  back  to  another  world,  to  come 
to  it.  But  Life  cramps  him  now  more  than  it  did  then,  for  the  habits 
of  boyhood  and  youth  unchanged  are  the  habits  of  a  man,  and  so  where 
the  man  would  have  grown,  he  is  only  pinched  and  thwarted  by  this 
hard  armor. 

Such  men  as  John  and  Peter  will  not  let  the  visit  pass,  without  using 
some  time,  in  the  sail  on  the  lake,  in  the  talk  at  the  table,  to  lift  this 
man  above  thoughts  of  the  salt  market  and  the  fish  market,  the  best 
way  to  make  a  corner  here,  or  to  secure  profit  there.  And  they  will 
succeed.  But  every  time  it  is  they  who  lift,  and  he  who  is  lifted. 
Their  Life  is  real  Life,  the  larj^est.  the  loftiest  and  the  deepest.  His 
life,  when  they  find  him  is  it  life.'  is  mechanical,  small,  low  and  dead, 
becau.se  he  has  been  .selfish.  And  the  one  token  that  his  nature  is  like 
theirs,  and  his  possibilities  like  theirs,  is  that  he  knows  that  this  is  so. 

it  would  be  easy  to  imagine  just  such  a  contrast  between  Paul  and 
some  old  Pharisee  companion,  as  they  should  meet  twenty  years  after 
he  heard  the  call  of  Christ,  and  waked  at  I)ama.scus  to  a  life  large  and 
true.  I  wisii  one  of  the  ma.sters  of  imagination  in  such  themes,  such  a 
man  as  Charles  Kingsley,  or  William  Ware,  would  work  that  out  for  us. 
It  would  be  a  very  true  romance,  and  very  pathetic.  Paul  at  Jerusalem, 
just  before  the  Jew  mob  gathered  round  him,  might,  did,  I  siipposi-. 
meet  more  than  one  such  old  fellow-student,  class-mate  of  the  old  col- 
lege days  of  Gamaliel.      Paul  was  prince  of  gentlemen,  and  he  would 


82 


K ASTER. 


have  greeted  such  a  man  in  the  most  cordial  way.  Fresh  from  travel, 
used  to  the  best  society,  he  had  been  with  scholars,  with  rulers,  prefects 
and  their  courts,  had  seen  the  leading  men  of  the  Hebrew  faith  all 
through  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  and  was  in  nowise  cut  ofl'  as  yet 
from  Jewish  communion.  And  the  other  for  twenty  years  tithing  mint 
and  anise  and  cumin,  at  the  most  arranging  a  new  procession,  or  intrigu- 
ing for  the  election  of  a  high-priest.  Paul's  range  of  interests  is  in 
nothing  less  than  the  establishment  absolutely  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
If  you  come  at  his  heart  of  hearts,  if  he  would  talk  of  what  in  solitude 
he  dreamed  of,  he  would  tell  you  how  he  saw  Ca;sar's  throne  tottering ; 
every  altar  in  the  world  grown  cool ;  every  slave  set  free,  and  every  chain 
broken.  Nay,  this  is  little.  He  looks  across  the  veil,  as  those  who  see 
what  is  invisible.  That  other  world,  as  men  call  it,  is  this  world  to 
Paul.  That  future  life,  as  men  say,  is  now  to  him.  He  meets  the  little 
country  scribe,  his  old  schoolmate,  as  a  Christian  gentleman  meets  a 
gentleman.  But,  as  when  the  three  parted  fishermen  met,  John  and  Peter 
and  their  friend,  so  here  Paul  has  to  lift,  ancl  the  other  to  be  lifted. 
Paul  lias  t')  lead  and  the  other  to  be  led  ;  for  Paul  is  alive,  and  the  other 
is  dead  in  his  jots  and  tittles,  his  forms,  rubrics,  traditions  and  commen- 
taries. Paul  has  entered  upon  the  real  life  of  a  child  of  God.  The  other 
is  still  hammering  among  things,  living  as  beasts  live,  and  no  wonder  if 
he  fears  to  die  as  they  die. 

For  here  is  no  contrast.  obseiTe,  between  the  man  who  has  travelled 
and  him  who  has  staid  at  home.  It  is  not  the  contrast  between  him 
who  has  preached  to  Greeks  and  Colossians  and  Ephesians,  and  him 
who  has  served  his  generation  in  the  walks  just  as  noble  of  home  life.  It 
is  not  the  contrast  between  the  well-informed  man  and  the  ill-informed 
man.  No ;  you  find  the  same  contrast  in  the  same  house,  between  two 
people,  neither  of  whom  have  left  the  same  town.  If  you  would  g  > 
with  me  into  some  one  of  these  great  clusters  of  houses,  where  undei- 
one  roof  are  contrasts  of  life  as  broad  as  between  Greenland  and  India, 
I  could  show^  you  this  same  contrast  there.  At  one  door  there  should 
welcome  us  an  old  man,  the  mere  beauty  of  whose  face  would  attract 
you  as  you  stood  at  the  door.  The  courtesy  of  his  manner  would  teach 
you  what  is  meant  bv  the  words,  '•  nature's  gentlemen."  If  it  were  only 
in  the  cheerfulness  of  his  talk,  he  would  lift  us  above  any  commonplace 


THE    SUN    OF    RIGHTEOUSNKSS.  8^ 

or  petty  range  of  conversation.  Before  \\e  knew  it,  we  should  be  ask- 
ing him  some  question,  which  might  perhaps  give  us  the  cKie  to  the 
evenness,  grace,  bearing  and  contentment,  of  an  old  age  so  well  ordered, 
of  life  so  well  balanced.  Yet  I  cannot  vouch  for  his  grammar,  and 
his  learning  goes  scarcely  beyond  the  Bible.  While  his  neighbor — if 
we  are  bold  enough  to  make  him  a  visit — has  nothing  to  tell  us,  and 
seems  to  have  everything  to  ask.  He  has  everything  to  complain  of, 
and  he  keeps  all  the  interview  upon  himself.  His  conflict  with  things 
seems  to  have  made  him  a  thing  as  well.  We  are  glad  to  escape  from 
the  interview,  and  are  at  a  loss  to  know  how  this  man  is  to  be  lifted  any 
higher  than  the  le\el  which  he  seems  to  have  chosen.  Now  the  one  of 
these  men,  as  tar  as  one  sees,  has  travelled  as  much  as  the  other.  The 
one  has  learned  the  same  external  facts  as  the  other.  The  ditlerence 
came  into  tlieir  lives,  whenever  one  consciously  looked  up  to  God  and 
tried  to  serve  him,  and  the  other  consciously  looked  down  and  tried  to 
forget  him.  In  those  moments  one  chose  unending  and  imbounded  re- 
lations for  his  life,  and  the  other  chose  dimgeons,  fettei"s  and  all 
restraints  for  his.  If  they  both  stay  at  home  for  ten  years,  one  lives  out- 
side himself,  ranges  in  thought  and  hope  through  the  very  streets  of  the 
eternal  city,  meets  in  companionship  with  the  whole  army  of  prophets 
and  heroeSv  who  have  given  themselves  to  the  infinite  service  of  man- 
kind. And  the  other,  though  they  travel  sea  and  land,  carries  every- 
where with  him  his  own  hamper ;  feels  everywhere  his  own  pulse,  is 
cursed  everywhere  with  his  own  heart-aches,  and.  of  necessity,  leads 
but  a  verv  petty  life,  because  his  life  is  centred  in  himself.  One  of  the 
two  is  of  that  class  of  whom  it  is  said  that  ••  you  find  everywhere  a  clieer- 
ful  outlook,  a  perfect  determination  t'>  relieve  sulfering  and  a  certainty 
that  it  could  be  relieved,  a  sort  of  sweetness  of  disposition,  which  comes 
from  the  habit  of  looking  across  the  line  as  if  death  were  little  or  notli- 
ing.  and  with  that  a  disposition  to  be  social,  to  meet  people  more  than 
halfway."  And  this  is  only  to  say  in  more  words,  that  tiiis  man,  the 
day  he  became  partner  in  the  universe,  took  all  the  largeness  and  ac- 
cepted all  the  responsibilities,  of  Faith,  of  Hope  and  Love.  But  the 
other  trusted  nothing,  hoped  for  nothing  and  loveii  nobody.  For  him- 
self he  tried  to  live,  and  e\en  in  that  trial  failed.  For  life  which 
deserves  the  name  of  life  is  not  jxissible  on  these  conditions.  He  vege- 
tated, if  it  is  not  disrespect  to  the   vegetables   to  say  so.      He  existvo; 


84  EASTEK. 

but  as  you  saw,  when  you  met  him,  he  had  no  life  to  add  to  your  life, 
no  word  to  make  you  cheerful,  no  experience  which  you  would  not  fling 
from  you  like  a  burning  coal.  Unless  you  could  bring  him  some  help 
there  was  no  reason  why  you  two  should  come  together. 

Halt  the  world  rouses  itself  to-day  to  do  honor  in  some  form,  simple 
or  elaborate,  to  that  Master  of  Life,  who  from  such  death  of  selfish 
separation  rouses  men  to  such  largeness  and  reality  of  a  common  life. 
It  is  as  the  sun  in  the  heavens,  as  the  spring  days  lengthen,  wakens  in 
every  meadow  a  million  blades  of  grass  which  he  found  sleeping.  He 
calls  them  out  of  the  earth,  into  a  higher  life.  He  quickens  them,  he 
fosters  them,  he  attracts  them,  he  compels  them  so  that  they  draw  in  the 
nobler  forms  of  dress,  of  houses,  of  light  and  of  heat ;  and  in  their 
little  way  they  too  give  out  of  their  own  power,  they  breathe  out  a  bless- 
ing in  their  turn.  The  air  is  the  purer,  the  perfume  is  the  sweeter  bc- 
cau.se  these  millions  of  blades  of  g;rass  have  started  out  of  the  cold  death 
of  the  winter,  into  the  generous  mutual  life  of  the  new-born  \ear. 
What  the  sun  in  the  sky  does  to  those  blades  of  grass,  this  Sun  of  Right- 
eousness who  is  Lord  of  this  Easter  Day  has  dope  to  a  million  million 
lives  whom  he  has  called  from  that  dead  selfishness  of  lonely  and  sepa- 
rated life,  into  communion  with  each  other,  into  certainty  of  their  own 
future,  into  life  in  common  with  an  infinite  God.  In  that  call  he  takes 
the  name,  "  Sun  of  Righteousness."  In  that  name  this  Sun-Day, 
day  of  Light  and  Heat  and  Life,  becomes  his  day,  or  the  Lord's  Dav. 
Where  he  speaks  and  where  the  child  of  God  listens,  listens  as  Peter 
and  Paul  listened,  to  answer  and  to  follow,  there  a  world  of  life  opens 
to  the  vision  ot  that  child  of  God,  a  world  of  activity  opens  upon  the 
will  aroused,  worlds  upon  worlds  of  future  life  open  before  the  quick- 
ened gaze.  Yes !  The  society  and  companionship  even  of  the  infinite 
(iod,  Lord  (^f  heaven  and  earth,  become  the  august  privilege,  too  great 
for  stumbling  words,  of  him  who  was  yesterday  only  a  fisherman  or 
publican,  or  a  hair-splitting  pedant,  if  to-day  he  listen  to  this  call.  In 
tiie  wonder-work  of  the  Bible,  as  Dr.  Martineau  has  said  so  well,  the 
English  peasant  is  made  partaker  of  the  marvels  of  hi.storv  and  of  the 
world.  The  Hebrew  prophet  is  in  presence  of  the  English  tradesman, 
or  domesticated  in  the  Scotch  village,  is  better  understood  when  he 
speaks  of  Jordan  than  even  Burns  is  understood  when  he  celebrates  the 


I  tIK    SUN    OK    KIGHTEOUSNESS.  85 

Gretii.  or  Wordsworth  when  he  writes  of  the  Yarrow.  But  this  is  only 
<)\tc  little  type  or  illustration  of  that  free  masonry,  wider  than  this  world, 
of  him  who  is  partner  in  the  Universe.  The  Saviour  of  men  looked 
outside  of  Galilee,  outside  this  little  world,  into  all  worlds,  and  to  all 
men  he  oners  share  in  the  inheritance  and  the  vision. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  child  of  God  may  refuse  to  listen.  God's 
child  is  free,  as  is  his  Father.  From  the  word  that  is  spoken  he  mav 
turn  away.  Like  Satan  in  the  poem,  he  may  turn  from  his  place  in 
the  Empire  of  Heaven,  and  in  some  under-world  create  for  himself  a 
king^dom  of  his  own.  The  blade  of  grass,  which  is  summoned  to-day 
to  throw  oH  the  clod  above  it.  must  obey.  Though  it  be  deep  down  in 
the  dark  earth,  the  living  heat  of  the  sun  penetrates, — where  the  light 
cannot  strike  down, — and  the  germ  must  start  to  consciousness,  must 
find  its  own  \va\-  up  to  light  and  love,  must  live  and  grow.  But  man 
may  resist  to  the  bitter  end.  To  the  fisherman  at  Bethsaida,  who  stands 
where  Peter  stands,  the  call  comes,  as  it  comes  to  Peter,  and  the  fislier- 
man  may  say  ••  No,"  or  perhaps  he  will  not  care  even  to  speak,  but  will 
quietly  turn  away  from  Infinite  Life,  and  with  his  eyes  open,  choose  to- 
day's chance  at  fishing  as  better.  When  Saul  hears  the  plaintive  call, 
"Saul,  Saul,  why  dost  thou  persecute  me?"  there  is  some  other  dab- 
ster over  forms,  whose  name  is  all  forgotten,  who  hears  a  like  cry, 
plaintive  and  tender,  and  shuts  his  ears,  as  if  he  did  not  hear.  And  s<i 
to-day,  among  these  thousand  tokens  of  life  renewed,  among  a  thousand 
glories  of  life,  among  all  the  tokens  and  treasures  of  infinite  beautv.  in- 
finite wisdom,  infinite  love,  it  is  possible  still  to  refuse  to  commune 
with  God,  to  refuse  to  look  into  heaven,  to  refuse  to  share  and  share 
with  these  companions.  Such  prerogativx' of  freedom  man  enjcns.  He 
can  clo.se  his  eyes,  he  can  close  his  ears,  he  can  harden  liis  heart,  he  can 
live — men  do  live — as  t!ie  beasts  live,  so  that  lie  shall  die — men  do  die 
— with  as  little  Iiope  and  joy  as  the  beasts  die  withal.  But  our  Faster 
morning  wakes  us,  with  its  storm  of  perfume,  music,  love,  light  ami 
glory,  that  we  may  tread  under  our  feet  .such  fetters  of  Iwndage.  With 
all  its  voices  and  all  its  memories  it  allures  us  that  we  may  pass  from 
death  unto  life,  in  the  new  birth  of  a  higher  being,  of  those  who   mvk 

IN     I.OVK. 


THE    FAREWELL    AT    AZAN. 

BY    EDWIN    ARNOLD* 

Farewell,  friends  !  Yet  not  farewell ; 

Where  I  am,  ye,  too,  shall  dwell. 

I  am  gone  before  your  face. 

A  moment's  time,  a  little  space. 

When  \e  have  come  where  I  ha\'e  stepped 

Ye  will  wonder  whv  ye  wept ; 

Ye  will  know,  bv  wise  love  taught, 

That  here  is  all,  and  there  is  naught. 

Weep  awhile,  if  ye  are  fain, — 

Sunshine  still  must  follow  rain  ; 

Onl}  not  at  death, — for  death. 

Now  I  know,  is  that  first  breath 

Which  our  souls  draw  when  we  enter 

Life,  which  is  of  all  life  centre. 

Be  ye  certain  all  seems  love. 
Viewed  from  Allah's  throne  above  ; 
Be  ye  stout  of  heart,  and  come 
Bravely  onward  to  }our  home  ! 
La  Allah  ilia  Allah !  yea  ! 
Thou  love  divine  I   Thou  love  alway  ! 

He  that  died  at  Azan  gave 

This  to  tliose  who  made  his  Pfrave. 


THE  LIFE  WAS  THE  LIGHT  OF  MEN, 


Our  Southern  Indians  worshipped  the  Rising  Sun.  The  chief  of  the 
Natchez  tribe,  who  was  its  priest,  mounted  early  upon  the  high  hill 
which  they  had  perhaps  made  for  such  worship,  and  with  the  first  ray 
of  the  glad  light  made  signal  to  the  waiting  throng  that  the  new  day's 
life  had  come.  Their  morning  worship  is  the  announcement  ot  their 
daily  joy  that  light  gives  life,  and  that  light  and  life  are  one. 

That  savage  worship  suggests  the  eager  purport  of  this  text  of  St. 
John.  He  is  using  the  fanciful  language  of  the  fooleries  of  his  time, 
for  better  purpose  than  it  has  ever  borne  before.  He  would  fain,  if  he  can, 
make  those  who  read,  remember  that  the  world  has  its  light  as  it  has  its 
life  from  the  one  God  who  makes  it  and  orders  it.  It  does  not,  a^  the 
Eg}'ptian  doctrine  of  yEons  implied,  receive  Light  from  one  source  and 
Life  from  another,  it  does  not  go  here  for  its  Truth  and  tlicre  for  its 
Love.  The  gifts  of  God  are  not  thus  divided  in  various  arsenals,  nor 
are  we  treated  as  some  wretched  commander  is  treated,  who  has  to  send 
to  one  department  for  his  powder,  to  another  for  his  shot,  to  another 
for  his  shells,  sent  to  Washington  for  his  instructions,  and  to  Alaska  for 
his  men.  The  Life  of  the  world  is  tlie  Light  of  the  world,  and  its 
Light  is  its  Life.  "We  have  all  received  of  his  Fullness,"  indeed, 
as  he  takes  care  soon  to  say,  and  as  James  says,  in  his  Epistle,  wc  all, 
when  we  choose,   "  partake  of  the  Divine  nature." 

The  world's  theologians,  in  its  recent  days,  have  been  generally  men 
who  learned  what  little  they  knew  from  books,  from  such  oracles  as 
nominative  cases  and  verbs,  and  have  learned  them  with  the  errors  that 
to  such  limited  methods  belong.  It  is  not  unnatural  then  that  their 
habit  of  speaking  of  the  Saviour  of  men  should  have  become  a  habit 
of  making  him  such  a  one  as  themselves.  Their  Christ  is  one  who  has 
a  doctrine  to  teach.      He  has  obtained  information  which   he  is  to  im- 

(87) 


88  EASTER. 

part.  We  are  to  go  to  him  for  Light,  and  we  are  to  carr}-  this  Light  to 
others.  What  he  brings  to  us  is  a  Revelation.  All  this  indeed  is  true,  nor 
can  there  beany  possible  harm  in  compelling  the  world  to  receive  it.  But 
then,  why  here  is  only  a  very  little  of  the  truth  !  How  is  it  that  this  Christ 
teaches  me  the  Golden  Rule  .'*  How  is  it  that  he  compels  me  to  pra\  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer.''  How  is  it  that  when  I  hear  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son,  I  know  that  God  and  man  are  united  in  the  union  there  described? 
It  is  because  here  is  the  Life  of  Men.  It  is  because  the  Life  of  the 
World  grows,  thrives,  enjoys,  succeeds,  lives,  when  the  World  takes  in 
and  takes  on  thfs  habit  of  Life.  W^hen  the  World  is  one  with  its  God 
as  he  is,  then  the  World  knows  what  it  is  to  Live. 

It  is  perfectly  true,  as  persons  indiflerent  to  Christianity  point  out, 
that  Jesus  Christ  did  not  first  discover,  reveal,  or  point  out  the  Immor- 
tality of  man.     No  indeed  !     In  that  matter,  as  in  all  others,  "  God  had 
never  left  himself  without  a  witness."     Martha  had  stammered  out  at 
her  brother's  grave,   ""  I  know  that  he  shall  rise  again  at  the  Last  Day." 
Plenty  of  announcements  before  of  man's  immortality.     But  the  marvel  of 
the  Saviour's  work,  and  the  Miracle  of  Easter,  is  that  he  makes  men 
believe  these  announcements,  and  take  them  into  the  field  and  purport  of 
their  daily  Life.     As  he  himself  says,  he  not  only  comes  that  men  mav 
have  Life,  but  he  comes  that  they  may  have  it  more  abundantly  than 
they  had  it  before.     He  makes  them  Live  with  Life  so  true,  and  their 
Life  is  so  large  and  full,  that  thev  know  that  it  does  not  end  with  the 
•  physical  accident  of  death.      With  every  hour  of  such  Life,  men  feel 
better  the  great  words,  "•  /  Am,"  with  which  God  describes  his  always 
present  being.     Or,   if  we  speak  of  texts,  such  men  know  better  the 
meaning  of  the  Saviour's  own  words  when  he   says,  so  simply,  "  Be- 
cause I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

Our  business  on  Easter  morning  i§  to  compare  the  large  life  of  the 
world,  as  he  set  it  throbbing,  enjoying,  enlarging  and  truly  living,  with 
what  the  world  called  life  when  he  was  born  into  it.  It  is  this  contrast  be- 
tween life  dying,  gasping  and  almost  dead,  and  the  life  of  to-day,  exulting, 
triumphing  and  increasing,  w^hich  justifies  our  Easter  rejoicings.  Com- 
pare, for  instance,  the  life  of  a  child,  as  Jesus  found  childhood,  against  the 
life  of  a  child  as  it  exists  in  all  Christian  lan.ls  to-day.  When  Herod 
the  Great,  with  one  stroke,  killed  all  the  children  in  Bethlehem,  he  did 
nothing  which  was  much  out  of  the  way,  in  his  own  habit,  or  indeed, 


THE    LIFE    WAS    THE    LIGHT    OK    MEN.  89 

in  the  history  of  his  time.  He  killed  so  many  of  his  own  children  in- 
deed, that  in  a  joke,  long  remembered,  the  Emperor  said  he  had  rather 
be  Herod's  hog,  than  Herod's  son.  When  he  killed  the  children  in 
Bethlehem,  nobody  could  say  him  nay,  but  I  suppose  in  strictness,  he 
then  only  used  the  pow^er  of  the  strongest.  But  when  he  killed  his  own 
children,  he  was  wholly  within  his  own  rights,  at  Roman  law.  Children 
were  nothing,  they  had  no  rights,  one  might  say  they  had  no  lives  of 
their  own,  until  there  came  this  infinite  enlargement  of  life  in  which  we 
live.  We  call  it  Christianity.  In  this  life  the  new-born  infont,  also, 
is  recognized  as  a  child  of  God,  born  into  the  family  and  partner  in  its 
privileges  and  its  duties.  You  may  see  the  old  system  now  in  any  un- 
tamed savage  tribe.  If  the  march  is  too  long  or  too  hard  for  the  boy 
or  girl,  if  boy  or  girl  winces  under  the  burden  which  is  divided 
between  them  and  the  dogs,  the  blow  of  a  hatchet  leaves  the  child's 
body  on  the  trail,  and  the  march  goes  on  unencumbered. 

It  is  from  such  daily  death  that  the  child  who  was  born  in  Bethlehem 
lifts  all  childhood  into  a  larger  life. 

And  so  also  of  the  life  of  women.  In  Palestine,  undoubtedly  it  was 
at  its  ve"y  best.  Nothing  in  Greek  or  Roman  or  Egyjitian  life,  in  that 
day,  compares  for  freedom  or  for  largeness,  with  such  a  life  as  Mary 
Mother  could  have  led  in  Nazareth,  or  any  otlier  peasant  woman  of 
Galilee.  But  Palestine  is  only  a  speck  on  the  world's  surface,  and  though 
you  bring  to  bear  on  literature  all  the  liglitvou  can,  though  vou  may  read 
between  the  lines  as  boldly  as  you  dare,  you  only  find  that  the  women  of  the 
time,  the  best  and  noblest  of  them  are  straws  upon  the  current  of  the  world's 
life.  They  are  sometimes  tlie  playthings  of  sovereigns,  they  sometimes 
rise  to  the  dignity  of  ornaments,  and  sometimes  a  Cleopatra  leads  an  An- 
tony to  his  ruin.  But  that  woman  like  man  is  living  and  moving  in  the 
infinite  work  and  purpose  of  God,  that  she  may  light  new  lights  in  the 
world's  darkness,  and  plant  new  seed  in  its  deserts,  that  woman  with 
man  is  put  into  the  world  to  subdue  it,  tliat  God  entrusts  to  her  as  to 
him  the  making  it  a  part  of  his  heaven,  this  appears  nowhere  in  litera- 
ture or  in  history,  till  the  Marys  and  Salomes  take  their  share  in  the 
life  of  the  Gospels,  until  Mary  Mag.lah-ne  t.-ac'ics  Simon  Peter  his 
great  lesson  at  an  open  tomb.  If  one  could  say  nothing  more,  one  would 
be  forced  to  say  this,  that  the  working  jjower  of  the  world  was  at  least 
doubled  when  the  new  life  thus  entrusted  to  woman  her  half  of  the  w.Tk 
which  God  entrusts  to  all  his  children. 


90  tASTKR. 

In  another  way,  and  by  other  lines,  the  new  life  which  dates  from 
this  day  creates  all  modern  commerce,  all  modern  discovery  and  inven- 
tion, almost  all  modern  manufactures  even,  and  agriculture  ;  certainly  all 
modern  science,  modern  law,  modern  government,  and  s  >  modern  civi- 
lization. The  world  has  been  perfectly  right  in  drawing  the  line  at 
Easter  morning  which  separates  its  ancient  history  from  its  modern  his- 
tory, its  old  from  its  new.  Thursday  night,  Jesus  Christ  himself  might 
call  the  ideal  Satan  "  the  Prince  of  this  world."  "  The  Prince  of  this 
world  Cometh,  and  hath  nothing  in  me."  But  let  GokI  Friday  pass, 
and  let  Easter  morning  come,  and  from  Easter  morning  for  nineteen  hun- 
dred years,  or  for  nineteen  thousand,  Jesus  Christ  is  Prince  of  this  world. 
King  of  Kings,  and  Lord  of  Lords.  At  his  word,  as  I  say,  modern  com- 
merce starts  into  being.  That  little  catechism  I  read  here  last  Sunday, 
"  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,"  teaches  his  law  of  life  to  a  few 
stragglers  in  Greece.  "  This  is  the  way  to  live,"  it  says.  "  Thou  shalt 
love  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
"What  a  poor  crumb  is  that,"  you  say,  to  throw  out  upon  the  dark, 
wild  waters  of  an  angry  world.  Crumb  if  you  please,  but  this  I  know, 
that  in  the  fullness  of  time,  if  a  tradesman  on  one  side  the  world  choose 
to  write  to  the  tradesmen  the  other  side  of  the  world  this  letter,  "  Send 
me  twenty  ships  laden  with  your  wheat,  and  I  will  send  you  whatever 
you  bid  me  in  recompense,"  I  know  that  that  request  will  be  honored. 
It  shall  be  flashed  through  the  ocean  in  an  instant,  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  Juno  to  send  from  one  side  Mt.  Olympus  to  another.  And  with- 
out an  instant's  hesitation,  it  ^vill  be  honored  by  a  man  who  neser  saw 
the  sender  and  never  will  see  him,  who  is  of  another  nation,  another  lan- 
guage, and  another  law.  This  will  come  about,  and  in  less  than  nine- 
teen hundred  years,  because  all  men  are  brethren  and  at  bottom  know 
they  are  brethren,  because  they  mean  to  bear  one  another's  burdens. 
That  is  to  say,  the  mutual  confidence,  which  is  centre  and  secret  of  all 
modern  commerce,  is  really  born  from  the  new  life.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  bring  all  men  unto  me." 

Work  out  for  yourself  if  you  can,  the  contrasted  picture  of  the  com- 
merce of  that  day.  Imagine  the  lordly  purveyor  for  the  tables  of  Tibe- 
rius. There  comes  to  him  one  morning,  as  he  sits  in  his  cabinet,  a  fa- 
vorite of  the  Emperor.  "  Marcus,"  he  says,  "  our  lord  has  heard  from 
a  great  traveller  of  a  new  luxury.     At  the  other  end  of  Asia  they  use  a 


THE    LIFE    WAS    THE    LIGHT    OF    MEN. 


91 


tonic  drink  which  cheers  them,  as  wine  does  not  clieer  us,  and  yet  it 
does  not  intoxicate.  They  use  it  as  a  dried  leaf,  which  they  steep  in 
boiling  water.  Our  lord  bids  you  provide  it,  and  tell  me,  when  can  it 
be  here.?"  The  purveyor  replies  in  dismay,  "  I  also  had  heard  of  this 
elixir,  but  I  had  hoped  no  tidings  of  it  would  ever  come  to  our  Master's 
ears.  Sriy  to  him  that  in  three  years  from  this  day,  if  the  lives  of  my 
messengers  are  spared,  he  sliall  taste  the  infusion  at  the  festival  of  Bac- 
chus." And  then  in  his  dejection,  he  calls  his  most  successful  traveller, 
he  gives  him  two  or  three  diamonds  to  stitch  into  his  girdle,  he  gives  him 
what  would  buv  a  hundred  slaves  for  his  expenses  of  travel.  He  is  to 
go  to  t!ie  farthest  East,  and  to  return  with  as  much  of  this  new  elixir  as 
he  can  safely  bear  upon  his  person.  And  he  must  be  in  Rome  again 
betovc  three  years  have  gone  by.  But.  long  before  that  time,  alas  !  his 
diamonds  have  been  blazing  in  the  crests  of  Kurdish  princes  and  his 
bones  have  been  whitening  in  the  Kurdish  desert.  And  when  the 
feast  of  Bacchus  comes,  the  Emperor  of  half  the  world  must  celebrate 
it  without  the  new  sensation. 

It  W(juld  be  worth  while  to  trace  out  the  same  contrast  in  the  diher- 
encc  between  agriculture,  manufactures,  navigation,  literature,  art  and 
science,  now  and  then.  There  is  hardly  a  single  detail,  where  the  con- 
trast is  not  as  strong  as  that  between  a  man  fumbling  at  midnigiit  for  a 
tool  which  he  cannot  find,  and  the  same  man  working  with  tlie  same 
tool  in  the  clear  sunlight  of  noon-day.  And  in  each  of  these  contrasts, 
we  should  find  what  must  serve  us  as  one  example  in  detail  of  t'.ie  world's 
resurrection  from  the  dead  to-day  ;  it  is  the  way  in  which  the  new  life  of 
the  world  calls  The  People  into  being.  Whole  nations,  alas  !  have  not 
yet  heard  this  call.  Many  of  what  are  called  Christian  kingdoms  do  not 
understand  it.  Even  the  great  democratic  governments  like  ours,  falter 
and  are  afraid  of  it.  But  all  the  same  it  sounds  steadily  and  makes  it- 
self intelligible.  ••  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  the  world," 
and,  '•  He  who  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your  minister."  These  arc 
the  central  lights  for  tlie  guidance  of  this  New  Departure.  Little  won- 
der that  tile  common  people  always  heard  him  gladly,  the  carpenter  of 
Nazareth.  Little  wonder  that  priests  and  rulers  heard  him  with  teiTor 
and  suspicion.  It  was  so  in  the  beginning,  it  will  be  so  to  the  end. 
But  more  and  more  t'.ie  truth  shines  out,  that  every  baby  born  into  the 
world  is  child  of  (jod,  infinite  and  eternal.      Every  such  child  must  be 


92 


EASTER. 


entrusted  with  every  privilege,  must  be  trained  with  ever\'  care.  For 
every  such  child  is  born  to  these  infinite  possibilities.  Give  to  the  child 
full  chance,  the  chance  which  you  would  give  to  an  imagined  archangel, 
and  there  is  no  saying  to  what  that  possibility  shall  come.  Trust  to  the 
full,  God's  abundant  love  and  give  to  each  child  the  best  you  know  how 
to  give,  for  its  health,  its  happiness,  its  growth,  and  its  education,  or  in 
one  word  for  its  life,  and  then  you  gain  infinite  power  though  you  were 
in  a  New  England  township  or  a  Swiss  canton.  It  is  power  for  inven- 
tion, power  for  discovery,  power  for  research,  power  for  teaching  and 
for  learning,  power  for  enlarging  the  world's  life  in  short,  such  as  no 
Tiberius  in  Capri,  no  Cronsus  in  Sardis  ever  dreamed  of,  and  such  as 
their  wealth  and  power  could  never  command.  For  a  hundred  and  fifly 
years,  while  in  a  half  feudal  system,  your  American  colonies  maintain 
one  class  of  proprietaries,  one  class  of  gentlemen,  one  class  of  laborers,  and 
one  class  of  slaves,  while  to  one  and  another  they  dole  out  rights  and  privi- 
leges with  unequal  hand,  according  as  the  baby  is  born  in  a  log-cabin  or  in 
a  house  of  cedar,  so  long  things  stand  still  for  America .  But  once  destroy 
this  paper  system,  as  Copernicus  destroyed  the  imagined  mechanism  of 
Ptolemy,  once  speak  to  all  your  people,  poor  and  rich,  black  and  white, 
fools  and  learned  in  a  Saviour's  words,  once  say.  and  mean  it  when  you 
say  it,  *"  One  is  your  Father,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  Say  this  as  if  you 
meant  it,  and  not  with  the  decorous  mouthing  of  the  pulpit  or  of  a  lit- 
urgy. Say  to  all  priests  and  all  noblemen  that  you  mean  it,  and  to  all 
laborers  antl  all  slaves  that  you  mean  it.  Let  your  laws  echo  it.  Make 
your  constitutions  as  if  this  and  only  this  were  true.  Then  even  a  pal- 
sied land  will  take  up  its  bed  and  walk.  Here  in  America,  so  soon  as 
that  word  was  spoken,  though  the  laughing  critics  call  it  a  ''gilded 
generality,"  there  was  no  wilderness  where  man's  foot  did  not  enter, 
there  was  no  ocean  he  did  not  traverse,  no  mountain  which  he  did  nt)t 
cut  down,  and  no  valley  which  was  not  exalted.  Man  is  told  he  is  child 
of  God.  He  tries  the  experiment.  And  lo  I  what  they  told  him  is  so. 
He  too  rides  on  the  whirlwind  and  controls  the  storm.  Born  in  a  hov- 
el, if  you  please.  Yes  !  but  he  becomes  the  greatest  of  his  brethren  for 
all  that,  if  only  he  accept  the  Gospel  rule,  and  live  in  the  Gospel  life, 
if  only  he  make  himself  the  servant  of  all. 

It  is  not  in  these  beautiful  flowers  only,  it  is  not  in  the  Easter  eggs 


THE    LIFE    WAS    THE    LIGHT    OF    MEN.  93 

only,  in  the  opening  crocus,  in  the  song  of  our  robins,  or  in  the  baptism 
of  our  darling  children,  that  we  are  to  find  the  symbols  of  Easter,  or  its 
trophies.  There  is  not  one  comfort  or  joy  of  our  modem  life  which 
would  be  in  any  sort  possible  to  us.  but  for  the  larger  life  which,  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  world  began  to  live  in  his  life  and  gospel.  So  true  is 
it,  that  his  gospel  is  not  a  lesson  simply,  but  a  life.  It  is  the  Light  of 
the  world,  but  that  is  because  it  is  the  Life  of  the  world.  You  know  I 
am  fond  of  saying  that  these  little  children  of  ours  are  born  into  the 
Christian  Church.  They  are  of  it,  beyond  peradventure.  It  was  a 
Christian  blanket  which  warmed  the  baby's  naked  limbs.  It  was 
Christian  science  that  saved  the  baby's  life.  It  was  the  Christian  coal 
burned  in  a  Christian  furnace  which  warmed  the  Christian  home  in 
which  the  Christian  child  lived,  where  the  child  of  the  savage  would 
have  died,  had  the  wretched  wife  of  the  savage  tarried  in  such  a  winter 
to  give  him  life.  But  each  one  of  us  may  learn  the  same  lesson  in  his 
own  home.  The  food  upon  the  table,  the  flowers  from  the  greenhouse, 
the  morning  newspaper,  the  street  car  in  which  I  rode  to  church,  the 
casting  of  the  bell  which  sounded  in  the  tower,  the  tones  of  the  organ 
which  spoke  to  me  of  peace  and  triumph  in  its  harmonies,  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  music  of  the  Easter  anthem,  nay  !  even  the  cunning  of  the 
hand  which  designed  the  font  for  baptism  are  only  offshoots  of  the  Life 
of  the  world,  which  lives,  because  Jesus  Christ  lived  and  died  and  rose 
again. 

••  Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also." 

"  The  things  that  I  do,  ye  shall  do  also,  and  greater  things  than  these 
shall  ye  do." 

"  For  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me." 

''  In  Him  was  Life,  and  the  Life  was  the  Light  of  Men." 


THE  SECRET  PLACE  OF  THE  MOST  HIGH. 

BY    WILLIAM    C.    GANNETT. 

The  Lord  is  in  His  Holy  Place 

In  all  things  near  and  far, 
Shekinah  of  the  snow  flake,  He, 

And  glory  of  the  star. 
And  Secret  of  the  April-land 

That  stirs  the  field  to  flowers, 
Whose  little  tabernacles  rise 

To  hold  Him  through  the  hours. 

He  hides  Himself  within  the  love 

Of  those  that  we  love  best : 
The  smiles  and  tones  that  make  our  homes 

Are  shrines  by  Him  possessed. 
He  tents  within  the  lonely  heart 

And  shepherds  every  thought. 
We  find  Him  not  by  seeking  long. 

We  lose  Him  not  unsought. 

So  though  we  build  a  Holy  Place 

To  be  our  Sinai-stand, 
The  Holiest  of  Holies  still 

Is  never  made  by  hand. 
Our  Sinai  needs  the  listening  ear, 

Our  Garden  needs  the  vow : 
"  Thy  will  be  done," — and  lo  !  Thy  voice, 

Thy  vision  as  we  bow  ! 


IMMORTAL 


"What  is  mortal  may  be  swallowed  up  of  life." — 2  CORINTHIANS,  v,  4. 

"  It  is  a  little  thing  in  comparison  to  believe  in  immortality.  The 
great  thing  is  to  live  as  an  immortal."  This  fundamental  statement, 
made  nearly  in  these  words  by  Rev.  John  Weiss,  a  man  of  rare  relig- 
ious genius,  announces  the  central  truth,  w^hich  gives  the  real  value  to 
the  festivities  of  to-day.  The  joy  of  the  new  Life,  the  jubilee  triumph 
because  Li  "e  is  larger  than  it  once  was,  and  is  to  be  larger  than  it  is,  the 
new  strength,  the  new  health,  the  new  certainty  which  come  to  the 
world  because  its  life  is  larger  than  it  was,  all  these  are  quite  impossible 
to  beasts  who  die,  as  tiiey  are  impossible  to  clocks  which  stop  when  the 
weights  have  run  down.  They  all  belong  to  the  victories  of  Immortal 
beings,  who  know  they  are  Immortal. 

And  the  lesson  of  Easter  for  you  and  me,  we  would  seek  a  lesson, 
will  be  learned,  if  we  rightly  ask  what  eternal  beings  do.  who  have  such 
senses,  such  muscles,  such  hopes  and  fears  as  we,  and  if  we  find  an  an- 
swer. What  is  there  which  a  man  can  achieve,  looking  forward  and 
able  to  look  forward,  which  a  brute  cannot  achieve,  because  he  dot's 
not  1'  ok  forward  and  cannot.'  How  does  this  surety  of  eternity  aflect 
dail\-  life,  what  I  say,  what  I  plan,  and  what  I  do.?  I  read  a  sjjeech  of 
Julius  CiEsar  and  he  tells  me,  tliat  when  a  bl(K)d  vessel  breaks,  my  life 
stops  forever.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  my  life  stops  forever,  becau.se 
that  mere  button  in  my  dress  gives  way.  How  will  tliat  difterence  be- 
tween me  and  Cicsar  atlsct  what  I  tiiink  and  say  and  do.? 

Mr.  Ruskin  lays  it  down  as  a  canon  of  art.  that  no  painting  should 
ever  shut  us  up  in  an  interior,  so  completely,  but  that  the  eye  may  some- 
where struggle  bevond,  and  see  through  a  window,  through  a  doorway, 
through  a  passage  between  columns  or  a  rift  in  the  trees,  to  the  infinite 
blue  of  an  infinite  heaven.     Whoever  has  to  change  the  composition  of 

(9.S) 


96  EASTKK. 

his  picture,  so  as  to  do  this,  to  change  from  tlie  mere  sketch  cf  a  room 
shut  up,  to  that  larger  scheme,  which  includes  t!uit  bit  of  heaven,  knows 
very  well  that  the  change  is  no  simple  change  of  one  or  two  details. 
Every  color  must  be  changed,  ever}  li^Jht  and  every  shadow.  Our  rela- 
tions now  are  with  infinite  affairs,  and  the  infinite  considerations  which 
we  have  brought  in,  will  affect  everything  with  which  we  have  to  do. 
The  mere  camera,  indeed,  which  I  have  focused  for  an  object  the  other 
side  of  the  room,  needs  entire  re-adjustment,  before  I  direct  it  to  an  ob- 
ject the  other  side  the  river  or  the  bay.  And  that  single  hint  as  to  a 
different  perspective  for  near  drawing,  or  distant,  carries  us  far.  The 
little  child  has  to  learn  to  see.  First  of  all  she  sees  her  own  hands  and 
learns  to  know  that  these  fingers  are  her  own.  It  is  a  step,  a  happy 
step,  when  beyond  the  hands  and  outside  of  them,  she  learns  the  face 
of  her  mother,  always  ready,  always  kind,  almost  always  near,  but  alas, 
sometimes  away  !  But  the  whole  machinery  of  vision  must  be  changed, 
and  the  whole  process  of  thought  enlarged,  when  the  infant  knowledge 
which  perceives  and  comprehends  these  two,  goes  farther,  and  knows 
the  curtain  and  the  window,  and,  at  last,  the  rattle  or  the  straw.  It  is 
by  successive  steps  from  these  that  the  child  at  last  conceives  the  idea 
of  distance,  which  is  not  natural  indeed  to  an  infinite  soul,  and  learns 
how  to  measure  in  a  fashion  the  difference  between  the  tree  in  the  gar- 
den, and  the  chair  in  the  room.  Here  is,  on  a  small  scale,  and  with 
steps  which  are  petty  in  comparison,  the  process  of  the  enlargement  of 
vision  alone.  With  that  enlargement  comes  the  growth  and  enlarge- 
ment of  every  other  faculty,  nay  !  the  growth  of  mind  itself  which  con- 
trols such  faculties,  and  in  the  end  the  enlargement  of  that  soul  which 
commands  the  mind  to  come  and  go  about  its  business.  It  is  in  that 
enlargement,  as  this  text  puts  it,  that  the  mortal  is  clothed  upon  with 
the  immortal.  A  mortal  man  now  begins  to  live  and  move  and  think 
and  speak  as  an  immortal  being  does. 

In  Mrs.  Trimmer's  story  of  "  The  Robins."  a  child's  book,  now  for- 
gotten in  the  nursery,  the  brightest  sentence  was  the  exclamation  of  one 
of  the  half-fledged  little  birds,  who,  having  flown  out  of  the  nest  for  the 
first  time,  cries  out  to  its  mother,  "  What  a  very  large  place  the  world 
is."  When  the  little  robin  is  full}-  fledged,  she  will  be  able  to  fly  above 
the  apple  tree,  and  will  see  that  the  orchard,  which  was  but  just  now 
so  large  a  world,  fills  in  truth  a  space  verj'  small  in  a  world  which  has 


IMMORTAL 


97 


become  much  bigger.  And  if  the  robin  could  soar  like  the  lark,  the 
circle  of  the  horizon  would  expand  again,  the  hills  but  just  now  distant 
would  in  their  turn  become  near,  an  1  with  a  very  different  sense,  she 
would  be  crying  again,  "  How  very  large  is  the  world  I  "  And  yet  this 
horizon  is  nothing  if  robin  or  lark  learn  to  look  into  the  sun,  like  the  eagle, 
or  if,  by  this  time,  there  come  the  unanswerable  question,  "  What  is 
there  beyond  the  sun  ?  "  or,  "  What  is  there  beyond  the  farthest  star?" 

All  these  enlargements  of  the  horizon  are  littie  analogies  of  what  hap- 
pened to  the  literature  of  the  w^orld,  when  the  new  world  was  born  and 
the  old  world  ended.  That  is  to  say,  when  literature  began  to  speak  ot 
man  as  being  an  immortal  instead  of  talking  of  him  as  a  mere  brute, 
with  the  gift  of  speech,  w^ho,  at  the  best,  stopped  living  at  three  score, 
or  say  four  score  years.  Compare  the  book  of  Proverbs,  for  instance, 
with  Paul's  Letter  to  the  Philippians.  The  first  is  as  wise  as  you 
please.  It  is  very  bright.  It  is  useful.  It  is  practical.  It  is  shrewd. 
It  is  even  humorous  in  places.  But  then  !  it  is  all  so  narrow,  so  re- 
stricted !  You  turn  over  to  the  end  to  look  for  something  more.  Is  it 
possible,  you  say,  that  this  is  all  these  men  had  to  say  about  life,  when 
they  were  so  sharp  and  keen?  Why  !  this  is  not  life,  they  talk  about, 
this  is  nothing  but  clockwork,  the  swing  of  the  pendulum  here,  and  the 
twitch  of  the  second  hand  there.  From  this  you  tiu-n  over  to  the 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  It  is  all  jubilant  with  tlie  joy  and  confi- 
dence of  divine  being  I  You  are  not  saying  anything  about  heaven  per- 
haps, but  you  talk  like  a  person  who  is  in  heaven.  He  who  writes 
really  knows  what  the  joy  of  God  is,  the  joy  of  creating,  the  joy  of  sustain- 
ing, the  joy  of  living  and  loving  forever.  That  is  the  reason  why  this 
exile,  writing  in  a  prison  to  a  handful  of  provincials,  the  most  prosper- 
ous of  whom  was  peddling  dye-stufts  for  a  living,  keeps  saying,  "  Re- 
joice evermore !  Rejoice  in  the  Lord.  The  Lord  is  at  hand."  And 
Paul  speaks  with  that  large  certainty  which  has  in  the  end  preser\'ed 
this  little  letter  of  his  so  that  it  is  remembered  everywhere  among  tiie 
classics  of  gf)otl  cheer  and  enthusiasm.  It  speaks  the  pass-words  and 
rallying  cries.  "  Forgetting  the  things  which  are  behind  and  stretching 
forward  to  the  things  which  are  before." 

On  the  whole,  this  is  the  contrast  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New  Testament,  though  in  the  great,  glad  exceptions  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  prophetic.     Still,  speaking  in  general,  what  harasses  you  as  you 


98  EASTER. 

read  your  book  of  Kings  or  of  Chronicles,  is  the  feeling,  perhaps  unde- 
fined, that  this  all  belongs  to  a  corner  of  Asia,  and  perhaps  to  the  life 
of  some  Gideon  or  Barak,  of  whom  you  know  little  and  perhaps  care 
less.  In  the  New  Testament,  vou  are  on  different  ground,  and  are  breath- 
ing a  different  atmosphere.  And  when  you  look  for  the  horizon  to  your 
picture,  there  is  none.  These  men  who  write  and  talk,  speak  as  im- 
mortals to  an  immortal ;  and,  for  the  instant,  you  cannot  but  accept 
their  postulate.  In  their  company  you  are  as  one  of  them.  And  he, 
the  leader  of  them  all,  who  starts  them  on  this  line  of  address,  at  once 
so  simple  and  so  large,  he  takes  from  first  to  last  the  ground  that  as  he 
is  Son  of  God  you  are  God's  sons  and  daughters,  that  you  share  the  in- 
finite life.     Death.-*    What  is  it.''     They  who  truly  live  can  never  die. 

And  you  might  make  the  same  contrast  between  classical  literature 
and  all  modern  literature.  Man  is  a  much  larger  being  to  the  writer  of 
our  time  than  he  was  to  Virgil  or  Livy  or  Herodotus,  and  it  is  this 
truth  which  asserts  itself  whether  there  be  any  formal  allusion  to  his  im- 
mortality or  no.  Indeed,  since  what  we  call  modern  history  comes  in, 
you  may  almost  measure  men  against  each  other  by  comparing  them  as 
an  infinite  purpose,  the  purpose  of  an  immortal,  comes  into  their  en- 
terprise or  does  not.  Thus  Columbus  went  and  came  that  God,  in 
Jesus  Christ,  might  be  the  ruler  of  this  world.  The  wealth  of  the  In- 
dies should  redeem  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  The  people  of  the  Indies 
should  bow  before  the  cross.  The  world  should  be  one  world,  and 
Jesus  Christ  should  be  its  King.  What  follows  on ,  plans  so  large,  in  a 
range  so  wide,  is  that  men  rate  Columbus  as  one  of  the  first  of  men  and 
rate  him  rightly.  But  if  you  had  asked  within  twenty  years  of  his  death 
who  was  the  first  man  of  his  time  you  would  not  have  heard  his  name. 
Men  would  have  talked  to  you  of  that  Emperor  who  was  enrolling 
navies  and  compelling  armies.  But  alas  !  the  Emperor  had  no  object 
but  himself,  and  to-day  he  is  only  another  Goliath  or  Ajax,  a  savage 
on  a  throne  wearing  a  crown,  without  any  of  the  purposes  of  immortal- 
ity. Such  a  man  dies,  and  in  a  generation,  in  less  than  a  generation, 
there  is  nobody  left  to  pretend  he  is  first  of  men. 

And  let  any  man  to-day  take  for  leading  motives  the  motives  which 
might  impel  Uriel  or  Abdiel,  or  any  other  servant  of  God  who  is  not 


IMMOR  I  AL 


99 


worried  by  fear  of  death,  or  of  what  may  fohow  it.  Let  a  man  live 
with  God,  not  afraid  to  talk  with  him.  Let  him  studv  God's  plans  antl 
methods,  as  one  of  Michael  Angelo's  pupils  might  study  his.  Let  him 
work  in  nature's  laboratory,  tracing  the  present  processes  of  creation  as 
they  go  on  to-day  when  the  lily  opens,  or  let  him  study  history,  and  in 
the  evolution  of  century  from  century  see  what  it  is  which  is  weak,  -ind 
what  that  is  which  prevails,  how  vice  and  crime  are  powerless  an.l 
bring  forth  no  issue,  and  how  righteousness  exalts  a  nation.  Or  let  a 
man  undertake,  with  other  men  and  women,  what  he  might. supposj  an 
angel  would  do,  not  fettered  by  time  nor  anxious  about  its  passage.  •  L.'t 
him  range  from  hovel  to  garret  in  seeking  his  society,  let  him  house 
with  crime  if  he  can  so  help  crime,  let  him  carry  comfort  to  beggarv, 
and  teach  beggary  the  secrets  of  industry.  Let  him  live  with  men  for 
men,  not  as  if  the  clothes  that  he  wears,  or  the  viands  he  eats  Acre  of 
the  first  import.  Such  life  with  God  is  what  the  Saints  mean  by  Faith. 
Such  life  for  men  is  what  they  mean  bv  Love.  The  man  who  bids  h\s 
life  move  in  such  causes,  stiirts  to-day  on  the  career  of  an  immortal. 
His  mortal  house  is  clothed  upon  with  his  house  which  is  from  heaven. 
He  lives  as  an  immortal  lives.  He  opens  a  window  into  the  infinite, 
through  this  dead,  blank  wall  which  did  shut  ofi'  his  prospect.  He 
changes  the  focus  of  his  camera,  and  his  foreground  is  no  longer  dis- 
torted and  twisted.  And,  while  he  does  this,  he  finds  that  that  third 
element  of  an  immortal's  life  takes  on  certainty.  What  Paul  calls 
Hope,  by  which  he  means  living  in  the  future  while  a  man  lives  in  to- 
day, is  all  the  time  growing  stronger  and  more  a  thing  of  course  were 
it  only  by  exercise.  He  uses  what  he  has,  and  because  he  uses  it,  he 
has  m;)re. 

1  was  talking  to  a  near  friend  of  the  English  General  Gordon  since  he 
died,  and  in  a  downcast  way,  which  I  will  confess  was  time-born  and 
time-bred,  I  said  sadly  enough,  that  it  seemed  a  pity  that  such  a  life  as 
that,  so  devoted  to  the  noblest  purpose,  should  be  cut  sliort  almost  at 
the  moment  of  success,  because  a  lying  Arab  stole  in  behind  him,  and 
smote  him  to  his  death,  when  he  could  not  defend  himself.  His  friend 
liad  caught  so  much  of  his  spirit,  that  he  turned  on  me  almost  as  if  I 
had  spoken  blasphemy.  "  Oh,  no  I  "  he  cried,  '•  he  would  never  have 
said  that  himself.     Why,  he  was  for  himself  eager  for  the  larger  life. 


lOO  EASTER. 

And  you  could  have  pleased  him  no  more  than  to  show  to  him  that  it  was 
coming  soon.  And  see  t  )-day."  he  added,  "  how  much  more  power  he  has 
over  men,  to  lead  them  as  he  will,  than  he  had  only  a  year  ago  ! "  This  does 
not  mean,  as  Paul  says  so  wisely,  that  Gordon  sought  to  be  unclothed. 
He  had  no  wish  to  throw  his  life  away.  No,  it  is  the  wish  '•  to  he 
clothed  upon  ;  "  to  have  one's  earthly  life  and  work  so  built  upon,  so 
glorified  and  aggrandized  by  the  large  powers  of  an  infinite  existence, 
that  one  may  subdue  the  things  of  life, — food,  clothing,  luxury,  monev, 
houses,  land  and  the  rest, — and  keep  them  under  entirely.  So  one  shall 
command  principalities  and  powers,  things  present  and  to  come.  "■  Ye 
shall  tread  on  serpents  and  scorpions,  and  nothing  shall  by  any  means 
hurt  you." 

To  think  of  to-day's  work  as  a  part  of  the  infinite  work,  to  speak 
even  of  to-day's  affair  as  belonging  in  the  service  one  is  to  render 
twenty  centuries  hence,  this  is  an  immortal's  habit.  An  early  friend  of 
mine,  whom  I  tried  to  describe  under  the  name  of  Harry  Wadsworth, 
and  whom  some  of  you  young  people  know  by  that  name,  had  this 
habit  so  completely  that  I  find  old  friends  of  his  speaking  of  him,  as 
if  that  were  perhaps  the  characteristic  by  which  most  often  they  remem- 
bered him.  As  a  man  who  has  lived  in  China  and  is  going  to  live  there 
again,  unconsciously  speaks  a\  ith  a  difierent  measurement  of  Sufiblk 
county  and  of  Boston,  though  he  never  allude  to  a  detail  in  that  other 
home  of  his,  so  such  men  impress  you  as  having  lived  in  heaven  and 
meaning  to  live  there  again.  And  here  the  comparison  fails  us.  For  the 
reason  why  such  men  and  women  give  this  impression,  is  that  they  live 
in  heaven  now.  For  as  a  man  may  be  a  son  of  Massachusetts,  and  at 
the  same  time  be  a  loyal  citizen  of  the  United  States,  yes,  and  may  give 
to  the  National  Administration  the  larger  part  of  his  thought  and  care, 
almost  forgetting  that  there  are  Massachusetts  politics  or  administration  ; 
so  a  man  on  this  earth  may  be  so  interested  in  Faith  and  Hope  and 
Love,  which  are  the  infinite  elements  of  Eternal  being,  that  what  is 
merely  earthly,  eating  an!  drinking  and  sleeping,  shall  be  quite  subor- 
dinate. And  this  double  life,  s'.iall  I  call  it.?  is  what  Paul  means,  when 
he  says  the  life  on  earth  is  clothed  upon  with  our  life  which  is  from 
heaven. 

And  if  it  so  happen  to  any  of  us,  that,  in  the  course  of  promotion  from 
world  to  world,  one  of  our  very  nearest  friends,  whose  life  is  all  knit 


IMMORTAL.  lOl 

into  our  life,  is  called  from  service  here  to  higher  service  there,  then  we 
are  called  to  a  communion  with  heaven,  whether  we  would  or  no,  and 
at  least  in  the  thought  of  him  who  has  gone  before  us,  we  are  living  as 
immortals  live.  Mrs.  Stowe  has  well  said  of  the  death  of  children,  that 
there  is  hardly  one  household,  where  the  gulf  between  this  world  and 
the  other  world  has  not  been  bridged  over  when  such  a  child,  so  dear, 
so  sure  to  be  remembered,  passed  from  shore  to  shore.  "Where  my 
treasure  is,  my  heart  is."  And,  as  one  after  another  leave  me  here,  I 
am  the  more  apt,  whether  I  meant  it  or  no,  to  cross  over,  were  it  only 
in  my  questionings  and  imaginations,  to  ask  them  questions,  or  to  ask 
God  questions  about  them,  and  I  am  the  more  apt,  in  .the  twilight,  to 
sit  and  wait  for  the  help  that  they  have  asked  from  God  for  me,  and 
which  is  sure  to  come.  Because  they  have  left  me,  I  am  the  more 
sure  to  live  the  lite  of  Faith,  of  Hope,  and  of  Love. 

LEaster  morning  does  not  prove  man's  immortality.  It  asserts  it.  In 
the  univers::l  resurrection  from  the  night  of  winter,  as  Life  returns  which 
has  been  sLcping  or  shrouded,  it  asserts  man's  communion  and  com- 
panionship with  the  God  who  is  life  :  and  it  declares  that  man,  who  is 
child  of  God,  cannot  die.  Because  he  is  immortal  he  can  adjust  his  life 
with  the  Infinite  Perspective,  Because  he  is  immortal,  he  can  come  to 
his  God  as  an  nnmertal  comes,  can  speak,  can  listen  antl  can  reply 
again.  Because  he  is  immortal,  he  arranges  his  duties  on  the  scale  of 
immortality.  He  begins  if  he  chooses,  on  what  shall  task  him  a  thou- 
sand years  to  finish  :  he  enters  on  this  enterprise  or  that,  perfectly  sure 
that  he  has  infinite  allies.  Is  one  of  these  allies  called  away  so  that  lie 
does  not  see  his  face.^  It  is  as  a  fellow  officer  might  be  sent  on  other 
service  in  the  campaign,  whom  he  is  t  >  meet  again  in  the  hour  of 
^^victory.  Because  he  is  immortal,  hj  lives  with  these  and  for  these 
who  also  are  immortal.  They  have  perhaps  help  for  him,  he  has  per- 
haps help  for  them.  Help  or  n :)t.  each  has  for  each,  companionship, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  t!iat  t!iey  are  t  >  grind  along  through  ages  of  ages, 
stupid  and  alone. 

To  renew  such  immortiil  life  here,  of  Faith  and  Hope  and  Love,  is 
the  mission  every  year  of  Easter  Day.  That  this  which  is  mortal  may 
be  clothed  upon  witli  immortality.  ^ 


LISTENING. 

BY    W.    C.    GANNKTT. 

I  HEAR  it  often  in  the  dark, 

I  hear  it  in  the  light, — 
Where  is  the  voice  that  calls  to  me 

With  such  a  quiet  might? 
It  seems  but  echo  to  my  thought 

And  yet  beyond  the  stars  ; 
It  seems  a  heart-beat  in  a  hush. 

And  yet  the  planet  jars  ! 

Oh,  may  it  be  tiiat  far  within 

M ,'  inmost  soul  there  lies 
A  spirit-sky  that  opens  with 

Those  voices  of  surprise  ? 
And  can  it  be,  by  night  and  day, 

That  firmament  serene 
Is  just  the  heaven  where  God  himself, 

The  Father,  dwells  unseen  ? 

O  God  within,'  so  close  to  me 

That  every  thought  is  plain. 
Be  judge,  be  friend,  be  Father  still 

And  in  Thy  heaven  reign  ! 
My  heaven  is  mine,  my  very  soul. 

Thy  words  are  sweet  and  strong, 
They  fill  my  inward  silences 

With  Music  and  with  Song. 

They  send  me  challenges  to  right 

And  loud  rebuke  my  ill. 
They  ring  my  bells  of  victory, 

They  breathe  my  "  Peace,  be  still !  * 
They  ever  seem  to  say,  "  My  child, 

Why  seek  Me  so  all  day? 
Now  journey  inward  to  thyself 

And  listen  by  the  way." 


MANY  HOMES, 


"  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions.  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  toid  you;  foi 
I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." — JOHN  xiv,  2. 

As  the  declaration  in  which  the  Saviour  lifted  the  curtain  highest, 
the  text  is  studied,  of  course,  with  curious,  even  anxious,  interest. 
There  is,  it  seems,  a  heaven  for  each  of  us,  whatever  his  mood  or  his 
attainment ;  and  it  seems  that,  as  Jesus  thought  of  it,  t.iese  might  be 
quite  different  each  from  each.  One  thing  more,  which  our  stately 
word  "  mansion  "  does  not  teach,  but  which  appears  distinctly  in  the 
original  text,  and  in  all  that  Jesus  ever  says  of  heaven, — these  places 
which  he  prepares  are  so  many  homes.  Your  home  is  ready  for  you, 
mine  for  n:e.  The  text  would  be  better  rendered,  indeed,  if  we  read, 
"  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  homes." 

1.  Whatever  we  know,  and  whatever  we  believe,  of  these  homes, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  line,  is,  as  St.  Paul  says,  spiritually  known  and 
"  spiritually  judged."  To  Jesus  Christ,  living  in  the  Spirit  of  God, 
led  by  the  Spirit. — or,  as  we  say,  leading  a  life  wholly  spiritual, — the 
whole  sense  of  these  realities,  what  I  may  call  the  sight  of  them,  the 
hearing  and  conception  of  them,  was  perfectly  clear.  To  us  it  is  clear 
or  not  clear,  strong  or  faint,  according  as  our  lives  are  lives  of  the  spirit 
or  of  the  flesh  ;  according  as  we  live  for  things  that  die,  or  for  the 
three  realities  which  endure. 

And  here  is  the  answer  to  the  frequent  question,  why  Jesus  Christ 
himself,  with  his  clear  vision  of  the  infinite  life,  gave  lis  no  more  de- 
scription of  it,  nor  other  pictures  of  it,  than  are  in  these  words.  What 
is  the  use  of  pictures  to  a  person  who  cannot  see,  or  of  descriptions  to 
one  who  cannot  understand.''  I  could  throw  upon  the  wall  yonder, 
from  :■  ca-rcn  ohscura^  a  perfect  picture  of  the  Temple  of  the  Partle- 

(103) 


I04  EASTER. 

non.  But  while  your  backs  were  turned  to  it  you  could  not  see  it ; 
nay,  even  if  I  begged  you  to  turn  round,  and  you  complied,  you  could 
not  see  while  the  church  was  all  aglow  with  this  light ;  while  you  were 
looking  upon  each  other  in  this  sunlight.  The  image  is  there,  but  it  is 
an  image  you  cannot  discern.  Only  a  few  of  those  nearest  could  just 
make  out  some  of  its  leading  lines,  its  highest  lights  and  deepest  shades. 
It  would  not  be  till  we  had  screened  oft  all  the  cross-lights  from  our 
own  sunshine  ;  till  we  could  no  longer  see  carpet,  cushion,  chandelier, 
persons,  or  anything  around,  that  the  picture  there  would  be  clear,  and 
sharp,  and  real.  No  revealer  can  reveal  anything  to  us  which  we  have 
not  the  spiritual  powder  at  least  to  apprehend,  and  in  a  measure  to  com- 
prehend. If  you  want  pictures  of  heaven  you  must  go  to  Mahomet,  or 
to  those  expounders  of  Christianity  who  adopt  the  fashions  of  Mahomet. 
He  will  give  you  flowers  and  gardens  to  your  taste  ;  but  even  he  can  do  no 
more  than  meet  the  taste  he  finds.  Jesus  reserves  what  he  might  have 
said,  because  unless  those  who  heard  him  are  of  spiritual  life,  habit,  and 
experience,  which  is  to  say,  unless  they  are  exercised  in  Faith,  Ilooe. 
and  Love,  why,  they  cannot  understand,  see,  or  hear  of  the  spiritual 
heaven,  of  a  heaven  of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love.  He  did  not  make,  there- 
fore, the  fatal  error  which  teachers  of  children  make,  who,  with  a  poor 
earthly  fancy,  describe  to  the  poor  little  things  that  before  which  the  lofti- 
est heavenly  imagination  is  silent, — a  mistake  which,  if  it  has  any  fruit, 
results  in  binding  them  for  years  to  a  heaven  which  is  only  a  garden,  or 
only  a  shop  of  jewels,  or  a  king's  palace,  according  as  the  childish  alle- 
gory mav  have  taught  them. 

I  think  t  :at  some  of  those  who  hear  me  may  remember  the  '•  Child's 
Book  of  the  Soul,"  the  name  of  which  carried  it  into  Sunday-school 
libraries  a  generation  ago.  The  amiable  and  well-meaning  author, 
himself,  indeed,  a  practical  philosopher  of  no  mean  pow^er,  attem*oted 
the  impossible.  He  would  describe  the  indescribable.  He  would 
define  the  infinite.  So  he  bade  his  unfortunate  little  readers  take  their 
school  slates,  and  with  short  marks  of  the  slate-pencil,  crowded  as  close 
as  possible  together,  cover,  first  one  side,  and  then  the  other.  Then  he 
bade  them  imagine  all  the  children  who  ever  lived  in  the  world,  since 
the  world  began,  using  the  whole  of  their  lives,  through  all  the  period 
known  to  history,  by  marking  slates  in  this  manner.  Then  he  bade 
them  fancy  that  each  mark  on  each  slate  I'epresented  a  thousand  million 


MANY    HOMES.  'IO5 

years  of  human  existence.  And  you  anticipate  the  sublime  close  of  the 
higlily  elaborated  chapter,  as  it  told  these  little  children  tliat  all  tlie 
white  marks  on  all  the  slates,  representing  all  these  congeries  of  thou- 
sands of  millions  of  years,  would  amount  literally  to  nothing  in  com- 
parison to  the  infinite  existence  of  God's  children  living  with  him.  Of 
all  such  elaborate  etTort,  for  what  the  fortunate  slang  of  our  time  calls 
•'  materialization,"  an  English  critic  said,  h::ppily,  that  the  very  best 
you  could  hope,  after  the  little  children  had  struggled  through  this 
chapter,  would  be  that  they  should  always  think  of  heaven  as  a  gigantic 
slate  quarry,  in  which  they  should  live  forever. 

And  such,  in  truth,  is  the  result  of  any  human  effort,  by  anv  human 
language,  to  describe  that  which  is  in  itself,  of  its  very  essence,  purely 
spiritual.  The  description  of  a  spiritual  heaven,  though  it  were  per- 
fectly wrought  out  by  an  archangel,  would  be  as  unintelligible  to  the 
carnal  mind  as  the  heaven  itself. 

So  is  it  that  the  only  statement  of  detail  which  the  Saviour  gives  is 
this  in  the  text ;  which  translated  into  our  habit  of  speech,  says  this, — 
that  whatever  be  the  heaven  which  we  are  prepared  for  when  we  pass 
from  this  world  that  spiritual  life  we  shall  have.  Our  homes  are  there 
such  as  we  ourselves  have  made  them.  If  your  highest  joy  be  the 
counting  out  of  rubies,  or  the  dressing  your  person  with  diamonds. 
Omnipotence  itself  will  not  force  you  into  life  more  spiritual.  There 
are  manv  mansions  there.  That  is  to  say,  the  economy  of  the  life 
before  us  is  the  same  as  that  of  life  Iiere  in  its  variety,  and  in  its  adapta- 
tion to  each  separate  soul. 

This  is  the  Christian  statement  of  life  without  these  bodies, — of  the 
future  life.  It  difiers  wholly  from  the  best  speculations  which  it  found 
in  the  world.  As  widely  does  it  differ  from  what  I  am  tempted  to  call 
the  •'  half-and-half  statements  "  of  to-day.  Do  we  not  hear  speculations 
from  people  who  think  of  God  from  their  knowledge  of  what  men  have 
been?  Such  a  man — if  God  had  let  such  a  man  stand  by  him  wlien 
human  life  began — would  take  for  granted,  at  once,  that  the  world  was 
always  to  be  peopled  with  myriads  of  exact  duplicates  of  Adam,  all 
exactly  alike,  and  all  mechanically  pulsing  at  the  beat  of  one  heart- 
throb. That  seems  to  be  mechanical  man's  highest  notion  of  the  high- 
est victory.  A  million  clocks  of  the  same  pattern,  of  which  all  the 
parts  are   mutually    inter-changeable !     An  army  of  perfectly    drilled 


I06  EASTER. 

soldiers  !  A  factory  of  consentaneous  looms  !  And  so,  mechanical  man, 
in  his  uniform,  shoe-last  conception,  can  frame  for  himself  no  better 
notion  of  heaven  than  that  it  is  an  ocean  of  God,  into  which,  bit  by  bit, 
we  melt  away.  Here  we  are,  blocks  of  ice,  such  men  tell  us,  which, 
in  that  life,  will  melt  back  into  the  one  ocean  which  shall  engulf  us  all. 

But,  as  you  see,  the  Christian  statement  is  not  hampered  by  any  such 
pettiness  of  the  slate-quarry  or  of  the  machine-shop.  The  God  who 
chooses  to  make  this  world  a  world  of  unity  in  variety  ;  a  w^orld  whose 
countless  forests  aic  made  of  countless  trees,  of  which  the  countless 
leaves  are  never  twice  the  same  ;  a  world  of  men,  each  diftering  from 
each,  and  each  free  ;  the  God  whose  grandeur  is  so  much  greater  than  our 
grandeur,  whose  success  is  so  much  more  successful  than  our  success, 
and  whose  variety  is  so  infinitely  beyond  our  tame  uniformity, — this  God 
chooses  for  his  heaven  the  same  infinity  of  ornament  and  design.  One 
star  of  it  differs  from  another  star  in  glory.  Each  angel  life  in  it  differs 
from  each  other  life.  So,  for  each  life,  there  is  a  different  mansion. 
"  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  homes." 

Just  as,  on  earth,  the  boy  and  his  father,  the  girl  and  her  mother, 
the  oldest  child  in  a  family,  the  second  child  and  the  youngest  child  ; 
the  sick  and  the  well,  the  old  and  the  young,  live  in  spheres  different 
each  from  each, — so  in  all  life,  life  there  and  here,  each  shall  find  himself 
in  his  own  home,  bearing  his  own  character,  and  living  his  own  life. 
Because  love  is  one  of  the  three  elements  of  heaven  these  homes  are 
homes  of  mutual  life.  As  there  is  society  here  so  there  is  there ; 
sympathy  here  and  sympathy  there ;  kindred  hearts  fuse  together  here 
and  they  fuse  together  there.  But  the  mansions  are  different  mansions 
there  as  here.  It  is  no  ghastly  caravansary,  poorhouse,  or  palace,  where 
Room  99  is  like  Room  i ,  and  Room  icxx)  like  Room  99.  It  is  a  myriad 
multitude  of  Homes.  There  are  many  spheres  of  duty,  many  voices 
in  chorus.  There  are  different  ti^ees  to  water — if  you  call  it  a  garden — 
and  different  flowers  to  train,  as  in  the  old  paradise, — where,  \\  iien  Adam 

"  Taught  the  tangled  ivy  how  to  climb, 
Eve,  in  a  wild  of  roses,  intermixed  with  myrtle. 
Found  what  to  redress  till  noon." 

2.  All  this  is  of  interest  to  us,  as  it  gives  us  help  in  to-day's  calami- 
ties, and  incentive  and  life  in  to-day's  duties.  Wherever  any  man  is  in 
his  spiritual  life,  just  there  is  heaven  ready  for  him  now.     Just  there. 


MANY    HOMES.  lOJ 

and  so  does  he  conceive  it ;  and,  for  all  the  purposes  of  his  well-beinfj, 
he  conceives  it  in  the  best  possible  w^ay, — he  conceives  itrif^htly.  Not, 
of  course,  that  it  is  a  complete  or  adequate  conception  ;  liut  it  is  as 
much  as  will  do  hira  any  good.  For  all  the  intents  and  purposes  of  his 
advancement  this  is  his  heaven. 

Describe  heaven  for  another,  and  insist  on  vour  description. — whether 
it  be  a  heaven  of  harps,  like  Dr.  Watts's,  or  of  piano-fortes,  like  a  more 
modern  author's  of  our  own  time, — you  drive  your  pupil  right  awav 
from  it,  unless  he,  be  a  precise  counterpart  of  yourself  who  make  the 
description.  An  eager  student  will  tell  a  child  that  in  heaven  he  shall 
always  learn  ;  and  the  child,  hating  book-learning,  really  dreads  such 
a  heaven.  An  eager  spirit,  always  on  the  alert,  preaches  that  in 
heaven  there  shall  be  no  pause  in  its  activity.  Heaven,  like  earth,  is  to 
be  eager  planning,  forward  marching,  and  every  Success  a  stepping- 
stone  for  new  plans  and  other  marches.  What  a  wound  is  this  to  the 
aged  heart  which  has  tossed  long  enough  in  the  gales  of  life  to  be  longing 
for  a  harbor !  The  best  story  they  tell  of  Calvin,  and  one  which  does 
something  to  redeem  him  in  our  affections,  is  the  story  which  tells  of 
his  quick  insight  when  some  such  contriver  had  been  describing  heaven 
to  him.  This  teacher  described  to  him  the  golden  glass  which  was  the 
floor  of  heaven,  and  told  him  he  was  to  look  down  through  its  trans- 
parency and  enjoy  the  sight  of  the  sufferings  of  the  damned  in  the  abyss 
below.  The  young  Calvin  was  child  of  God  enough  to  answer  in  scorn, 
'•  I  had  rather  live  with  the  damned  below  than  with  the  saints  above 
in  such  a  heaven  as  that  is."  And  we  need  not  go  back  for  such  anec- 
dotes three  hundred  years.  I  am  afraid  that  many  of  us  can  remember 
the  gloom  which  has  fallen  upon  our  exuberant  youth,  when  exuberant 
youth  was  taught  that  heaven  was  a  place  of  eternal  Sunday,  or  that 
the  saints  are  to  have  no  occupation  there  but  the  perpetual  singing  ot 
psalms. 

Such  is  the  result,  and  a  deserved  result,  of  the  best  pictures  your  poor 
fancy  can  paint,  if  you  are  bigot  enough,  after  the  fashion  of  creed-mak- 
ers, to  try  to  fix  them,  and  to  say  this  is  all  just  so.  For  its  stimulus, 
for  its  faith,  for  its  hope,  and  for  perfect  love,  the  soul  wishes  to  enter 
not  your  heaven,  but  its  own.  The  Saviour  knows  this  when  he  says, 
''  In  my  leather's  house  are  many  homes." 

Do  not  let  me  obtrude  upon  boy  or  girl  in  any  such  bigotry,  by  telling 


Io8  EASTER. 

of  my  own  boyish  imaginings.  Rather  I  may  help  boy  or  girl  if  I  can 
make  them  understand  how  as  one  grows  in  years  and  in  strength,  as 
this  world  grows  larger,  the  other  world  grows  larger  too.  For  I  can 
go  far  ienough  back  to  recollect  and  to  tliank  the  bright  Sunday-school 
teacher,  who.  when  we  children  had  asked  some  unanswerable  question, 
had  the  wit  to  stimulate  our  childish  imaginings,  by  telling  us  that,  when 
we  came  to  heaven,  we  might  ourselves  talk  with  the  actors  in  earth's 
eventful  scenes,  and  that  they  then  should  tell  us  what  we  did  not  know. 
Noah  should  tell  us  of  the  flood  ;  Romulus,  how  he  built  his  walls  ;  and 
Leonidai^,  of  the  defence  of  Thermopylic.  With  the  inquiring  mind  of 
a  child,  eager  for  n":ore  information,  heaven  io  thus  the  home  where  he 
shall  know  everj'thing.  But  time  piissed  on,  and  the  little  sister,  who 
was  my  playmate  and  companion,  died  of  a  sudden  and  went  before  me 
there.  Then  I  saw,  then  I  knew  ;  this  Bible  taught  me,  if  nothing  else 
taught  me,  that  when  my  turn  came  I  shoiil.l  be  with  her.  From  that 
hour  to  this  hour  heaven  has  been  to  me  the  place  of  companionship. 
Knowledge  ?  Yes,  I  suppose  so.  New  senses  ?  Yes.  New  senses  not 
to  be  counted  in  place  of  these  somewhat  cumbrous  five.  But  it  is  not 
such  images  which  come  first  to  him  who  has  loved  and  who  has  said 
gc:od-by.  To  that  man  heaven  is — more  and  niore  as  life  goes  on — the 
life  where  he  is  to  be  with  him  or  her,  her  an  I  liim  who  have  been  the 
blessing  of  life  here  ;  from  whom  he  has  been  parted,  but  whom  he  '^as 
not  lost : 

"  For  love  is  heaven,  and  heaven  is  love." 

St.  John,  in  Patmos,  where  his  island  was  a  prison,  of  which  the 
ocean  forged  the  chains,  speaks  of  heaven  in  exultation,  to  say,  "  The 
sea  is  no  more  I  "  ^'ou  must  not  quote  that  outburst  of  a  prisoner  to 
him  who  is  just  emancipated  from  his  daily  toil,  and  stanc.s  upon  ths 
sea-beach  to  look  at  the  unbounded  horizon  for  the  first  time  in  his  in  •. 
and  drink  in  some  notion  of  eternity  and  inf.nity.  To  the  prisoner 
heaven  is  freedom.  To  the  wamlerer  it  is  his  father's  house.  To  the 
ignorant  it  is  learning.  To  the  bookworm  it  is  simplicity.  To  this 
poor,  lame  boy,  to  that  weak,  deformed  girl,  it  is  the  roving  free  through 
limitle:  s  existence.  To  the  slave,  worn  under  the  lash,  it  is  a  world 
without  labor.  To  the  weary  it  is  rest.  To  the  sanguine  it  is  action. 
To  the  doubtful  it  is  truth.  To  the  struggling  it  is  peace.  To  the  sick 
it  is  health.     To  him  who  is  careworn,  distressed,  pulled  hither  and 


MANY    HOMES.  IO9 

thither,  with  not  a  moment  he  can  call  his  own,  it  is  eternity  ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  life  without  time  ;  where  there  are  no  minutes,  no  hours,  no 
days,  and  no  years  ;  no  late,  no  early,  no  tedious,  no  slow,  no  thought 
nor  care  for  time. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  these  conceptions  of  heaven  weaken  each  other,  be- 
cause they  thus  contradict  each  other. 

Those  who  are  eager  to  find  action  in  heaven  need  not  fear  but  there 
will  be  motive  enough,  effort  enough,  in  life  which  reaches  from  one 
side  of  eternity  to  the  other.  Duty  there  must  be  where  there  are  God's 
children  with  their  father.  But. — this  is  the  promise,  that  whether  the 
faithful  spirit,  sent  on  some  errand,  pass  from  one  end  of  heaven  to  the 
other,  or  whether  he  sit  at  the  footstool,  as  those  do  who  serve  while 
they  wait,  there  is  no  more  wear  and  tear,  no  more  fatigue  for  him. 
He  shall  "  rest  from  his  labors."  And  this  is  the  promise  all  along  ;  the 
spirit  remains,  but  the  limitation  is  gone.  The  mind  could  once  be 
cramped  by  a  fevered  brain,  or  by  paralyzed  fingers  ;  but  now  it  is  free  ! 
The  soul  may  soar  to  the  top  wing-beat  of  its  noblest  aspirations,  anti 
never  outwear  itself  in  its  ehort ;  yet,  it  shall  all  the  wliile  be  resting  in 
its  Father's  smile.  These  pests  of  earth,  fatigue,  nervous  exhaustion, 
unrest,  with  all  the  attendant  despairs  and  melancholies, — powers  of 
evil,  as  the  poets  well  call  them, — which  may  haunt  us  all  the  closer  as 
our  efibrt  is  the  nobler,  belong  in  this  life  ;  because  this  life  means  part- 
nership of  a  finite  body  and  an  infinite  soul.  The  soul  starts  in  the 
morning  on  an  angel's  work  ;  and  the  body,  too, — has  it  not  been  made 
by  an  Almighty  Hand.'' — boldly  takes  up  the  soul's  instructions,  bravely 
follows  on  hour  after  hour,  till  time  tells.  It  quivers,  wavers,  faints, 
fails.  Why  not. ^  How  else.'*  It  is  clay  at  best.  Earth-made!  And 
this  poor  soul  inspires  it  as  it  can,  fans  its  faintness  as  it  can,  cheers  it 
as  it  can,  braces  it  to  the  angel  duty  yet  undone.  As  a  hunted  prince 
in  the  desert  nibs  down  the  legs  of  his  failing  steed,  and  bathes  his 
mouth,  the  willing  soul  keeps  the  poor  body  up  to  the  last.  But  they 
are  yoked  unequally  ;  they  are  of  difierent  nature  ;  and  at  last  the  poor 
body  must  fall  back  to  sleep,  to  rest,  to  be  recreated  and  recruited,  be- 
fore, with  another  mornmg,  it  can  begin  again.  The  flying  steed  is 
voked  to  an  earthlv  r'.ac'.ster.  He  can  inspirit  him,  but  he  cannot  teach 
him  to  fly.  This  is  tho  only  fatigue  a  true  man  ought  to  know.  For 
that  other  ennui,  of  the  man  who  stands  all  day  idle,  no  true  man  ought 


to  know.  You  are  worn  down,  because  your  plans  are  beyond  the 
power  of  your  engine.  Driven  even  to  its  quickest,  when  you  say  you 
have  but  just  begun,  it  has  to  stop  till  it  can  cool  down.  The  heated 
metal  must  relax.  The  parts  must  take  their  old  places  before  vou  can 
drive  it  again  at  full  steam. 

From  such  a  life,  so  limited,  hampered,  thwarted,  the  infinite  soul 
springs,  at  death,  into  t'le  heaven  where  it  is  held  in  no  such  b')ndage. 
It  may  move  furever  on  the  swiftest  wings, — side  by  side  with  God's 
own  spiritual  laws,  woven  in  with  them.  It  comprehends  them.  It 
works  with  them,  unfettered  now,  and  easy.  It  is  not  strange  that  that 
soul  finds  a  heaven  which  is  at  once  the  home  of  rest  and  of  dutv  I 

I  may  speak,  then,  of  contrasted  pictures,  without  hazarding  their 
possibility. 

ileturn  from  these  to  the  imaginations  of  the  more  devout  poets, 
which  till  now  I  have  passed  by. 

Here  is  the  prayer  of  Festus,  in  the  poem  now  forgotten.  Like  all 
the  impuie  in  heart,  who  would  fain  be  pure,  he  cries : — 

"  I  could  not  look  on  Thee  whate'er  I  was, 
So  when  we  had  winged  through  Thy  wide  world  of  things 
And  seen  stars  made  and  saved,  destroyed  and  judged, 
I  said,  and  trembled  lest  Thou  shouldst  not  hear  me 

And  make  Thyself  right  ready  to  forgive, 
1  will  see  God,  before  I  die,  in  heaven." 

And  Dante,  toiling  on  from  that  dark  forest,  where  in  middle  life  he 
was  lost,  led  by  sage  to  sage,  from  step  to  step,  from  saint  to  saint,  even 
from  world  to  world,  finds  heaven  at  last : — 

"  When  with  close  heed,  suspense  and  motionless, 
Wondering  I  fixed  so  earnestly  my  ken 
On  the  everlasting  splendor." 

These  pictures  are  drawn  from  the  highest  flights  of  faith.  Their 
prototypes  are  in  the  gospels  and  in  the  epistles,  where  the  pure  in 
heart,  as  the  crown  of  their  eternal  quest,  see  God. 

It  is  only  before  the  Spirit  comes  that  James  and  John  wish  to  sit, 
the  one  on  the  right  hand  and  the  other  on  the  left  of  the  Lord.  In  their 
later  lives,  the  younger  James  says,  "  Be  patient,  brethren,  until  the 


MANY    HOMES.  Ill 

coming  of  the  Lord.  Behold  the  husbandman  waiteth  for  the  precious 
fruit  of  the  earth,  being  long  patient  over  it,  until  it  receive  the  early  and 
latter  rain."  His  heaven  is  a  ripe  fruit,  which  these  showers  and  these 
suns  have  matured. 

Peter's  heaven  is  ''An  inheritance  incorruptible,  and  tliat  fadeth  not 
away." 

John  whispers,  or  sings,  •'  Beloved,  now  are  we  children  of  God, 
and  it  is  not  yet  made  manifest  what  we  shall  be.  We  know  th:it  if  he 
shall  be  manifested  we  shall  be  like  him  ;  for  we  shall  see  him  even  as 
he  is." 

Paul,  practical  always  and  seeking  some  result,  is  ••  in  a  strait  betwixt 
the  two  ;  having  the  desire  to  depart  and  to  be  with  Christ,  for  it  is  very 
far  better." 

Stephen  cries,  "  I  see  the  heavens  open,  and  a  son  of  man  stand  at 
the  right  hand  of  God." 

All  of  them  drinking  in  something  of  the  spirit  of  the  Master:  '•  I 
have  a  fire  to  be  lighted,  and  how  I  wish  that  it  were  already  kindled ! 
I  have  a  baptism  to  be  baptized  with,  and  how  am  I  straitened  till  it  be 
accomplished  !  "  His  heaven  is  looking  from  his  Father's  presence  on 
a  world  warmed,  lighted,  and  redeemed. 

And  here  I  have  cited  only  one  or  two  among  the  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  imaginations  of  heaven  with  which  Saviour,  prophet,  poet, 
and  martyr  would  have  supplied  us.  Among  them  all  I  may  hardly 
more  than  once  have  struck  the  key-note  for  your  idea  of  heaven  or 
yours ;  for  as  on  earth  there  are  many  homes,  no  two  quite  alike,  so  in 
heaven  there  are  many  homes,  and  no  one  the  same  as  another.  As  be- 
tween these  earthly  homes  there  is  the  quickest  sympathy  and  the  closest 
love,  if  only  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  ;  so  between  tliose  myriad 
homes  of  that  other  life  ;  and  among  them  all  there  is  one  spirit,  and 
they  are  made  perfect  in  one  I  So  is  it  that  each  soul  of  us  here,  for  his 
own  cheer,  for  his  own  help,  for  his  own  training,  has,  if  he  be  faithful, 
pure,  and  wise,  the  idea  or  vision  of  heaven  which  for  him  is  best  at 
this  moment.  It  is  not  for  me  to  paint  your  picture,  nor  for  you  to 
paint  mine.  For  it  is  thus  that  to  you  and  me  God  is  pleased  to  give 
one  more  stimulus  for  our  upward  way.  When  I  lay  me  down  to 
sleep,  and  pray  God  to  take  my  soul  if  I  die  before  the  morning,  it  is  n  )t 
to  any  strange  city,  unknown  to  me  and  unknowable.     The  home  t'lat 


il2  EASTER. 

is  oftered  me  is  the  mansion  for  which  I  am  ready,  and  the  heaven  which 
I  vaguely  dream  of  to-day  is  the  heaven  which  shall  be  mine  to-morrow. 

And  to  any  man  who  comes  to  me,  and  says  that  .he  has  found  no  sat- 
isfactory conception  of  heaven,  I  should  say  that  probably  he  has  been 
seeking  the  image,  instead  of  the  reality.  We  cannot  '"  imagine,"  we 
cannot  clothe  in  images,  that  which  our  Lord  himself  did  not  choose  to 
picture,  to  describe,  to  image,  or  to  define.  Let  a  man  rather  devote 
himself  to  making  simpler  his  idea  of  God  and  of  his  own  soul.  Let 
him  accustom  himself  to  the  thought,  that,  as  his  soul  uses  this  bodw 
so  it  may  use  other  bodies  of  higher  power,  with  senses  we  have  not 
yet  attained  to  ;  unlimited,  indeed,  in  their  range  and  sohere.  What 
the  limitations  of  earth  are,  we  know,  alas  I  too  well.  But  yet  we  are 
able  to  conceive  of  God  as  free  from  these  limitations.  Nay,  we  free 
ourselves  from  them  as  we  plan  for  our  own  future  and  set  in  order  its 
activities.  And  here  is  the  promise  to  you  and  to  me  :  that  what  we 
need  is  ours.  What  we  have  gained  is  ours.  For  our  labor,  rest.  For 
our  hunger,  food.  For  our  thirst,  the  water  of  life.  For  our  love,  such 
love  as  Christ's  ;  as  all  good  angels' ;  as  the  very  love  of  God.  And  n  ) 
man  is  to  fear  that  he  is  not  ready  for  the  place.  What  the  Saviour 
went  for  was  to  prepare  the  place  for  him.  What  place  I  am  fit  for 
that  place  I  find. 

In  mv  Father's  house  are  many  homes! 


Works  of  Edward  E.  Hale, 


KASTER 


A  Collection  Made  for  A  Hundred  Friends. 

This  collection  consists  of  TWELVE  SERMONS  preached  in  Mr.  Hale's  own  church 
during  the  past  fifteen  years,  together  with  several  favorite  Easter  Poems  selected  by  Mr. 
Hale. 

PRICE:  CLOTH,  50  Cts.  GILT,  75  Cts. 


Ten   Times   One   is   Ten    Circulars.     Two   Small  Vols,  in  One. 

Board  Covers,  60  Cts. 
This  Book  gives  many  hints  about  the  Wadsworth  Clubs  and  Look-up  Legions 

In  His  Name.     A  Story  of  the  Waldenses  700  years  ago.     Paper,  30 
Cts.     Library  Edition  :  Cloth,  $1 .00. 

Ten  Times  One  is  Ten  ;  or  Stories  of  the  Wadsworth  Club.     Paper, 
30  Cts.     Cloth,  $1.00. 

Man  Without  a  Country  and  Other  Stories.     Paper,  30  Cts. 
Small  Edition,  Cloth,  50  Cts. 

Ingham  Papers.     Paper,  25  Cts.     Cloth,  $1.00. 

Col.  Ingham's  Visit  to  Svbaris.     Paper,  25  Cts. 

What  is  the  American  People.     20  Cts. 

Badges,  15  Cts.  to  50  Cts. ;  sample  sent  for  15  Cts. 

Cards,  25  Cts.  per  dozen. ;  75  Cts.  per  Hundred. 

Sent  on  receipt  of  price. 

J.  STILMAN  SMITH  I  CO.,  30  Franklin  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


fEB  5-1948 
APR2    1949 

INTERLIBRARY  L^ANS 

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